I 

■ 






m 











m 



m 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 







UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



AIDS TO SCRIPTURE STUDY 



BY 



FREDERIC GARDINER 

LATE PROFESSOR IN THE BERKELEY DIVINITY SCHOOL j AUTHOR OF " THE 
OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS IN THEIR MUTUAL RELATIONS ; " OF COM- 
MENTARIES ON LEVITICUS (IN SCHAFF's LANGE), ON 2 SAMUEL 
AND ON EZEKIEL (iN ELLICOTT's COM.) J OF HARMONIES 
OF THE GOSPELS IN GREEK AND IN ENGLISH | OF A 
DIATESSARON ; AND OF A COMMENTARY ON THE 
EPISTLE OF ST. JUDE 



1 1 * l . 




s* 






SEP 12 1890./ 

^shTngto^ 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(€Je iFlitier^iDe $re£& Camfiri&ge 

1890 






A'* 



Copyright, 1890, 
By C. V. GARDINER. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge , Mass., U. S. A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



In presenting this work to the public, a few 
introductory and explanatory remarks seem 
necessary. 

The book was prepared several years ago, 
and laid aside in the abundance of other oc- 
cupation. It had been the intention of the 
author to take it up afresh^ and to rewrite it 
wholly. He had, in fact, made all prepara- 
tions for so doing last summer, just before his 
unlooked for and lamented death. He had 
gone over the manuscript, had made some 
changes, and had indicated the places where 
other alterations were desirable. 

In the places thus indicated the editor has 
felt at liberty to modify the text, following as 
a guide a course of lectures upon the interpreta- 
tion of the New Testament which were delivered 
by Dr. Gardiner, at Newton Theological Insti- 
tute, in 1884. In other passages, it has seemed 



IV EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

to him proper to confine himself closely to the 
original text, except where he could be guided 
by the lectures in the use of forms of expression 
more nearly representing the mature considera- 
tion and deliberate choice of the author. 

No apology is needed for publishing a work 
upon a subject of such general interest and im- 
portance, which, moreover, in the opinion of 
several eminent theological scholars, seems likely 
to be useful not only to students in the semina- 
ries, but also to the ever increasing class of 
earnest and devoted students of the Scriptures 
in our Churches and Bible Classes ; especially 
as the methods suggested have been approved 
by long use and experience, being those which 
the author himself was accustomed to follow in 
his own work and to recommend in his class 
room. 

Some hesitation was felt in publishing a work 
of Dr. Gardiner's which had not had the benefit 
of his scholarly and accurate editorial super- 
vision ; but, in the desire to continue and ex- 
tend his usefulness, and in the confidence that 
those who are familiar with his former works 
will attribute any errors that may appear to the 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. V 

circumstances of the case, the book is put forth 
with the earnest wish and hope that it may ful- 
fill the purpose for which it was written — " Ad 
majorem dei gloriam." 

Henry Ferguson. 

Trinity College, Hartford, 
May 5, 1890. 



PREFACE. 



Of late years the growth of interest in Bibli- 
cal studies has been marked, and the increase of 
commentaries has been most noticeable. There 
has not been any corresponding attention given, 
in this country at least, to the systematic treat- 
ment of the principles of interpretation. In 
Germany many such treatises have heen pub- 
lished since the days of Ernesti, among the more 
recent of which may be mentioned those of Keil, 
Dopke, Pareau, Klausen, Lutz, Sehleiermacher, 
Liicke, Wilke, and Immer. Some of these have 
been translated, and have proved of great value, 
especially the " Hermeneutics of the New Testa- 
ment," by Dr. A. Immer, translated and edited 
in America by Professor Newman. Something 
has also been done of the same kind in France 
in Cellerier's " Manuel d'Hermeneutique," and 
in Great Britain several treatises have appeared, 
among which may be mentioned those of David- 



Vlll PREFACE. 

son and of Fairbairn, besides the discussion of 
the subject in the course of more comprehensive 
works of introduction to the Scriptures. Miin- 
scher's " Manual of Biblical Interpretation " 
witnesses that the matter has not been wholly 
overlooked in our own country. Most of these 
treatises have been upon the interpretation of 
the New Testament alone, and it is believed 
there is still need of a fresh work adapted to the 
habits of thought and study of the American 
scholar. The present volume is an attempt to 
supply this need. Its plan is so different from 
that of preceding works upon the subject, that 
it is likely to be marked by the imperfection of 
a venture in a new path ; but it is hoped that it 
may still be of use to the student, and may open 
the way for more perfect works to follow. 

The Hermeneutics of the Old and the New 
Testaments have so much in common, the con- 
nection between them is so very close, and the 
details in which they differ may be so concisely 
treated, that it has seemed wise to include them 
both in one work. This plan has also the ob- 
vious and considerable advantage of bringing out 
more clearly the essential unity of Scripture. 



PBEFACE. ix 

The discussion in the Introduction renders it 
unnecessary to speak here of the view of inspi- 
ration taken in this work : suffice it to say that 
while the Bible is regarded as the word of God 
in the truest meaning of that phrase, it is yet 
written by men ; and to ascertain its meaning 
the ordinary laws of interpretation must be re- 
garded. At the same time, while the historico- 
grammatical method must be everywhere em- 
ployed to ascertain the sense of Scripture, it 
must be used in constant remembrance that the 
Holy Spirit is the ultimate Author of the Scrip- 
ture teaching, and in view of the great object 
for which that teaching has been made known 
to men. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction ...... 1 

PART I. 

THE PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

I. Preliminary ....... 64 

II. General Knowledge of the Scriptures . 73 

III. The Geography and the Physical Geog- 

raphy of Bible Lands .... 87 

IV. The General History of Scripture Times. 91 
V. Archeology and Antiquities . . . 101 

VI. Knowledge of Natural Science . . . 107 

VII. The Religious Preparation of the Inter- 
preter ....... 115 

VIII. Knowledge of the Original Languages . 120 
IX. Textual Criticism 129 

1. Textual Criticism of the New Tes- 
tament 130 

2. Textual Criticism of the Old Testa- 
ment 137 

X. The Personal Qualifications of the In- 
terpreter 149 

1. Willingness to take trouble . 149 



x ii CONTENTS. 

2. A Judicial State of Mind . . 154 

3. Common Sense and Sagacity . . 157 

4. Reverence 159 

PART II. 

THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

XI. Preliminary 163 

XII. The Application of the General Know- 
ledge of the Scriptures . . . .1(58 

XIII. Knowledge of the Particular Book . 177 

XIV. The Use of Geography 183 

XV. The Use of History, General and Par- 
ticular 192 

XVI. The Use of Archaeology and Antiquities 209 

XVII. The Use of Natural Science . . . 222 

XVIII. The Use of the Original Languages, and 

THE IMMEDIATE CONNECTION . . . 228 

XIX. The Use of Textual Criticism . . . 254 
XX. The Interpreter at his Work . . . 2G0 



AIDS TO SCRIPTURE STUDY. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In order to interpret the Bible aright, it is 
first of all essential to determine the nature and 
character of the Book with which we have to do. 
It is a book which is neither new nor unknown, 
and it is therefore entirely unnecessary to deal 
with it as if it now met our eyes for the first 
time. On the contrary, it has been before the 
world for so many ages, and a certain general 
interpretation of it has contributed so largely to 
the formation of Christian civilization and so- 
ciety, that many things may be considered as 
fixed by common consent. Certain points, how- 
ever, still remain under discussion ; and as these 
materially affect our view of its character, it will 
be necessary to say something upon them before 
setting forth in detail the principles of its inter- 
pretation. 

Two leading views have been and continue to 
be held among Christians : one, that the Bible is 



INTRODUCTION. 



the word of God, given indeed to men, and com- 
municated through men, with all their individual 
peculiarities, but so guarded by the providence 
of God as to be absolutely reliable ; the other, 
that it is a collection of books written by men 
inspired of God, but yet expressing His truth 
and His will in such fashion as conceived by 
themselves, so as to contain many serious and 
important errors. In other words, these two 
views are commonly and tersely expressed by 
saying, one, that the Bible is the word of God ; 
the other, that it contains the word of God. It 
is plain that any system of interpretation must 
be greatly affected by whichever of these views 
lies at its foundation. It is proposed, therefore, 
to discuss this question as an introduction to the 
principles of Hermeneutics which are to follow. 

The only way of arriving at a satisfactory con- 
clusion in the premises is by examining the facts 
as they are presented in the Scriptures them- 
selves, and basing our theory upon the result. 1 

The first fact to be observed is, that the Scrip- 
tures have in them both something which is 
divine and something which is human. This is 
so generally admitted that it is not worth while 



i 



The substance of this discussion has already been printed 
as an article on " Errors in the Scriptures " in the Bibliotheca 
Sacra for July, 1879, and in a paper read before the Church 
Congress in Richmond, Va., in October, 1SS2. 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

to spend much time in its reexamination. That 
there is in them somewhat that is divine, and 
divine in a higher sense than Homer or Dante 
may be said to have a divine element, is abun- 
dantly shown by the work which they have done 
and are doing in the world ; that they have also 
somewhat which is human is sufficiently obvious 
from the idiosyncrasies of the several writers, 
and from the varying style and manner in which 
they have delivered the message entrusted to 
their care. Yet, inasmuch as both sides of this 
fundamental fact have been called in question 
by the advocates of opposite theories, it may be 
well to point briefly to a single and satisfactory 
proof of each of them. 

That the Scriptures have in them something 
which is human is proved by the fact that both 
the Old and the New Testaments, as we have 
them, do contain undeniable errors. In the 
New Testament, errors of copyists — most of 
them of little consequence, but still errors — 
have been brought to light in great abundance. 
It may be replied that these are matters which 
human care can rectify, and that inspiration was 
never intended to take away from man the 
trouble of ascertaining what it really said. This 
does not matter. These errors remained in the 
text unsuspected for centuries, and some of them 
still, and probably always will, remain ; for no 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

competent critic would pretend to say that the 
text is in all cases now definitely settled, or that 
it is ever likely to be. In the Old Testament, 
manuscripts of proportionate antiquity are want- 
ing, and the best and oldest of the versions give 
but a poor apparatus for the criticism of the 
text. Nevertheless, we may become certain, by 
a comparison of parallel passages, that errors ex- 
ist in one or other of them. For example, when 
the census of the captives returning from the 
Babylonian exile as given in Ezra ii. and in 
Neh. vii. is compared, it becomes plain that 
there must be several errors in one or the other 
or in both of them. Or, if we put the statement 
in 1 Kings iv. 26, that Solomon had forty thou- 
sand stalls of horses, by the side of that in 2 
Chron. ix. 25, that he had four thousand, it is 
obvious that one of them has been either multi- 
plied or divided by ten. This being admitted, 
another step may be taken, and an error assumed 
if absolutely impossible statements are found in 
the text ; as, when it is said (2 Sam. xv. 7) that 
"after forty years " Absalom did certain things 
in furtherance of his rebellious plans, while it is 
known from other parts of the story that Absa- 
lom's whole life was less than forty years. And 
this being granted, the critic will not hesitate to 
apply the same principle to other statements 
having such an extreme degree of improbability 



INTBODUCTION. 5 

as to amount to a practical impossibility ; as 
when it is. said that the Philistines mustered to 
battle thirty thousand chariots (1 Sam. xiii. 5). 
The errors thus far spoken of in both Testa- 
ments are, no doubt, mere lapsus of the scribes ; 
nevertheless, there they are, and often there is 
no other than conjectural means of correcting 
them. They prove that there are errors in the 
Bible, and make simply impossible the extreme 
theory of verbal inspiration, at least as far as the 
actual Scriptures in our possession are concerned. 
Only undeniable errors have been mentioned, 
that the evidence may be clear that there is a 
human element in the Bible. How far does it 
extend ? 

On the other hand, it is equally clear that the 
Scriptures have in them somewhat that is more 
than human ; for they contain truth, which, out- 
side of them, man has never discovered for him- 
self ; and if any one is disposed to argue that 
man might ultimately have discovered it, yet he 
certainly did not, and could not, at the time at 
which it was revealed. It is not necessary here 
to appeal to prophecy, or to anything else to 
which a possible objection may be made ; it is 
enough to refer to the broad fact that the gos- 
pel has introduced into the world truths un- 
known, or at least unregarded, before, which 
when announced are recognized of all men to be 



G INTRODUCTION. 

true, and has given to these truths practical 
sanctions of sufficient power to transform the 
institutions, culture, and principles of action of 
those parts of the world in which it has been re- 
ceived. Nothing but religion has ever had such 
power over the minds and hearts of men, at least 
on any large scale ; and no other religion can 
compare with the Christian in the assurance it 
conveys of having been inspired from on high. 
The older revelation is distinctly recognized and 
made its starting-point by the new ; and besides 
this, mankind generally have not failed to rec- 
ognize in such parts as some of the Psalms a 
spirit and aspirations breathed into them from a 
higher than human source, because they com- 
mend themselves as in harmony with all that is 
most divine, and no human compositions, except 
as based upon them, have ever reached so high 
a strain. The evidence in this case, being of a 
higher kind, is necessarily less tangible than in 
the former; it is sufficient for the present pur- 
pose that it is generally admitted by the com- 
mon sense of mankind. 

There are but three possible theories in regard 
to the Scriptures: first, that they are purely 
human ; secondly, that they are purely divine, 
even to their minutest detail ; and thirdly, that 
they are at once human and divine. The first 
two have already appeared untenable ; the third 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

alone remains. Accepting this, a most interest- 
ing and important question arises as to the re- 
lations or proportions of these two elements in 
the Bible. It is a question which can never be 
entirely solved, any more than it is possible to 
draw a definite line in the complex action of the 
human and the divine spirit. The two elements 
are there, and their union has produced the ac- 
tual result, without the possibility of assigning to 
each an independent part of the work. Both 
have cooperated in the whole. It may be com- 
pared to the doctrine of the church in regard to 
our Lord, in whom the two natures are insepa- 
rably (aStaiperws) united, though without confu- 
sion. Yet even in this case there are limitations 
in the activity of either nature ; the divine na- 
ture did not prevent Him as an earthly child 
from growing in wisdom as well as in stature, 
and the human nature did not hinder Him from 
speaking as never man spake. In regard to our 
present subject, it is of great practical impor- 
tance to ascertain, as far as may be possible, 
such limitations as actually exist. 

An obvious limitation to the divine element 
of the Bible is, that the inspiring Spirit has not 
seen fit to do away with the manhood and indi- 
viduality of the various writers. The personal- 
ity, the temperament, the habits of thought and 
culture of each particular writer are manifest in 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

his writings. The same truth is taught by John, 
Paul, and James, but in such different guise 
that they have been imagined to contradict one 
another. No one can fail to recognize the differ- 
ences in manner of utterance between the courtly 
Isaiah, the despondent Jeremiah, the priestly 
Ezekiel, and the princely Daniel. The Scrip- 
tures have certainly been given TroXvfxepus /cat 
7roAvrpo7ra)5. It is one office of these differences to 
adapt the Scriptures to minds of every class and 
mode of thought ; it is essential to the life-like 
character of the sacred narrative; and it has 
become an important means of determining the 
genuineness and authenticity of the various 
books. 

Our main question, however, is with the lim- 
itations of the human element. It has already 
appeared that there is no such limitation of this 
as to prevent errors of the copyists in the trans- 
mission of the sacred records. But the writers 
lived in times far apart, and all of them long 
gone by, and must themselves have shared in 
the crude and erroneous notions of their times 
concerning natural science, history, ethnology, 
archaeology, and many other matters. Have 
these errors become incorporated, through the 
human writers, in the Bible itself ? or has their 
humanity been so overshadowed, limited, and 
controlled by the inspiring Spirit within them, 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

that the expression of such errors has been pre- 
vented ? This is a question simply of fact, and 
must be decided by an examination of the evi- 
dence. 

First, let it be distinctly understood what is 
meant by error. It is something more or less 
false and wrong as proceeding from that imper- 
fect knowledge of the truth — whether moral, 
mental, or physical — which belonged to the 
times in which the writers lived, and in which 
they unquestionably shared. Such errors are 
commonly alleged as abounding in the Bible ; 
and if this is true, there is in this respect no 
limitation of the human side of the Scriptures. 
But if it is not true, then it is obvious that there 
must have been such a limitation extending 
through many ages ; and the Bible, consequently, 
presents a prodigy quite equal to any of the 
miracles it records, and similarly makes a cor- 
responding demand upon our faith. 

The most serious errors thus alleged are 
moral contradictions, — instances in which words 
or deeds are commended, or even commanded, 
especially in the older Scriptures, which are in- 
consistent with the divine character as made 
known in later revelation. Some space will be 
devoted to these farther on. Meantime it is to 
be considered that the various writers speak 
freely of whatever comes in their way in the 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

language and according to the ideas of their 
time, and that those ideas and that language 
were often wrong. It is argued by many, with 
apparent fairness, that this concludes errors 
upon the Scriptures ; because the writing must 
be interpreted according to what the writer 
meant to say, and in order to this his language 
must be examined in the light of the views and 
opinions he is known to have held. Is this rea- 
soning valid ? 

Take a few test cases. The Bible frequently 
speaks of the rising and setting of the sun, and 
its writers undoubtedly supposed that the sun 
went round the earth, and that this expression 
was literally true. It has proved to be untrue. 
Are the Scriptures so committed to this error 
that it may be cited as one of the scientific er- 
rors of the Scriptures? If so, the case may at 
once be given up ; but if not, it will certainly be 
hard to cite a clean nee. The language 

of the Bible is in opposition to the facts of sci- 
ence, and the writers who used it were ignorant 
of those facts ; while the Copernican system 
was under discussion, and before its truth was 
established, it was generally held that the Bible 
was committed to the opposite view. Here, 
then, are all the elements of what is called an 
error ; it is acknowledged that the statement is 
false, and that the writers who used it believed 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

it to be true ; it is notorious that when its truth 
was first called in question the interpreters of 
the Bible with one voice assured the world that 
the point had been definitely pronounced upon 
in holy writ, and that no other view could be 
taken without a flat contradiction of the Bible. 
Nevertheless, the opposite view was established, 
and nobody's faith was disturbed. It was found 
that men still went on speaking of the rising 
and setting of the sun, although acknowledging 
themselves the disciples of Copernicus. The 
common sense of mankind has settled it that 
there is no error here. The Scripture writers 
merely used the popular language of their times, 
and of all times, in alluding to the natural phe- 
nomena around them ; Galileo himself would 
still have used the same language. This is a 
typical case. 

Let us take another instance. Moses speaks 
of the coney (Hyrax Syriacus) as unclean, al- 
though he chews the cud, because he does not 
divide the hoof (Lev. xi. 5), and so of some 
other animals ; on the other hand, the swine 
(ver. 7) is accounted unclean, because he does 
not chew the cud, although he divides the hoof. 
All this is wrong. The coney does not really 
chew the cud, but merely has a way of moving 
his lower jaw which gives him the appearance of 
doing so ; and the swine does not divide the hoof, 



12 



INTRODUCTION. 



because, anatomically, he has four toes. In the 
same connection it is said (ver. 4) that the 
camel chews the cud, but does not divide the 
hoof; but anatomically he does divide the hoof, 
only he has a large pad which comes down be- 
hind the hoof, and on which he treads ; so that 
the description of Moses, while right to the eye, 
is scientifically wrong. In general, this whole 
distinction is wrongly taken. Chewing the cud 
and dividing the hoof are correlated develop- 
ments, so that, as far as science has yet observed, 
all animals which do the one do the other also, 
although it is very possible that exceptions may 
hereafter be discovered to this law. Now was this 
an error on the part of Moses ; and is it an error 
of the Bible ? Technically and superficially, of 
course it is, but not really. Moses himself may 
very likely have been but an indifferent com- 
parative anatomist; but this cannot be deter- 
mined simply from this use of language. He 
was giving a law for popular observance, and 
must necessarily mark his distinctions according 
to appearances, or expose the people to be con- 
tinually involved in transgression. The same 
thing would happen now. Suppose a modern 
legislature wishing to pass a law for the protec- 
tion of blackberries, raspberries, and other small 
fruit ; would it not describe them as herries ? 
Yet, botanically, those named are not berries, 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

while the grape and the tomato, which undoubt- 
edly would require separate provisions in the 
law, are scientifically berries. So in this case ; 
it does not matter what was the extent or the 
deficiency of Moses' own private information. 
The exigencies of the time and the circum- 
stances required that the law should be ex- 
pressed as it is, and it would have failed of its 
purpose had it been set forth in the technicali- 
ties of modern science. Shall we then say that 
such errors were unavoidable, and therefore 
Scripture must contain errors which betray the 
imperfection of human knowledge, and show 
that the human element was not so limited as 
to prevent error? Or shall we conclude that 
before the highest tribunal these are really no 
errors at all, but merely the condescension of 
infinite knowledge in making itself comprehen- 
sible to men of limited information ? For our- 
selves, we prefer the latter alternative, in view 
of the fact that Cuvier or Owen, or even Mr. 
Huxley himself, with whatever superior know- 
ledge, must still have used substantially the 
same language, if giving a law under similar 
circumstances, and with the design of having it 
observed. But really the question is merely 
one of words, whichever we choose ; since if these 
are to be called errors, they are yet errors which 
indicate neither faulty knowledge nor the neces- 



14 



INTRODUCTION. 



sary restriction of the source of the Scriptures 
to the human imperfection of the period in 
which they were written. There is nothing in 
these to show that the writings containing them 
may not have been inspired by perfect know- 
ledge, adapting its revelation to the imperfec- 
tions of the human knowledge of the time. 

Once more, to take an instance which has 
been the occasion of endless discussion — the 
cosmogony of Genesis. Here both the main 
fact and the subordinate details are necessarily 
beyond the scope of human observation ; and 
both the one and the other must either have 
been revealed, or else must have been the con- 
clusion of speculative thought. It is not uncom- 
mon to explain one of them in one way, and the 
other in the other, — to say that the main fact is 
that all things originate from a divine source ; 
this was revealed and intended to be taught ; 
but it was left to the writer to communicate 
this as best he could ; and he actually did com- 
municate it as best he could, in accordance with 
such knowledge as he had, or in such way as he 
could best imagine, and after the lapse of sev- 
eral thousand years his information has proved 
to be faulty. Now, it must be admitted that, 
under any possible exegesis, the account itself, 
if pressed to minutiae, is scientifically inaccu- 
rate. The word " day " may be understood (if 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

this be exegetically allowable) of periods never 
so indefinite, or it may be taken to indicate only 
a series of pictorial visions ; the phrases " Let 
the earth bring forth " and " Let the waters 
bring forth " may be taken, with Augustine and 
many others, in a causative sense, in accordance 
with a theory of spontaneous generation ; still, 
the palpable fact will remain that the introduc- 
tion of the higher forms of vegetation upon our 
planet was not completed before animal life be- 
gan, while it is certainly implied by the story of 
the third and fifth days in Genesis that it was ; 
nor were the highest developments of aquatic 
life known before terrestrial animals appeared. 1 
Here, then, as in the former cases, there is error. 
It is not sufficient for our present purpose to 
say that this error is in a secondary detail, and 

1 It is scarcely worth while to stay to notiee some alleged 
minor errors, such as that God is said to have set the sun and 
moon in the firmament, as if he had permanently fastened 
them to a solid vault. There is no proof whatever that the 
Hehrews shared in the conception of the classical nations of 
the expanse (such is the meaning" of the He Drew word) ahove 
being solid ; but whether they did so or not, it is certain that 
Moses, or any one else of sufficient intelligence to have writ- 
ten this narrative, must have known of the motion of the 
moon relatively to the sun. He could not therefore have 
meant that both were fixed or attached to a solid foundation, 
but must necessarily have used the Hebrew word in its ordi- 
nary sense of put on placed, and not in the technical meaning 
of the English word set. 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

is comparatively unimportant. It is necessary 
to ascertain whether the detail containing the 
error is the outgrowth of human ignorance, or 
whether it belongs to the divine revelation. 
There are reasons for thinking that it could not 
have come from merely human reasoning or im- 
agination. The account is too good, it is too 
nearly scientifically accurate, to admit fairly of 
this supposition. Among all the cosmogonies 
of which we know it is unique in this respect. 
The best accounts of the creation found else- 
where have probably either come originally from 
the same source, or have been modified by this. 
The nearest approach to it is the Etruscan, of 
which, at present, we know only through the 
account given of it by a Christian writer of the 
tenth or eleventh century ; 1 and this, such as it 
is, differs exactly in the point of being less in 
harmony w r ith the teachings of science. The 
Chaldean legends of the creation — not to speak 
of their being overlaid and interpenetrated with 
a mass of mythological absurdity — have plainly 
been derived originally from the same source 
with the story in Genesis, and cannot, therefore, 
help us to account for its truth. 2 Even Knobel, 

1 Suidas, Lex. s. v. Tvppr)i'ia. 

2 Of the "Chaldean Genesis" it has well been said by an 
able writer that " though corresponding in some interesting 
particulars with the Biblical narrative, [it] lacked precisely this 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

after recounting these and various other cos- 
mogonies, says, " Of all these, the prize belongs 
by universal acknowledgment to the simple and 
natural, dignified and sublime Hebrew narra- 
tive." It is so difficult to suppose that such a 
cosmogony should have been the result of merely 
human speculation in the remote ages to which 
it belongs, that it would be much easier to con- 
sider it a divine revelation throughout, but for. 
the errors mentioned above. Let us, then, look 
more narrowly at those errors before deciding 
that they are inconsistent with a revelation from 
the Omniscient. 

The general order of creation is given with 
entire accuracy, — first chaos, then light, then a 
fluid mass, then a separation of the dry land 
from the waters, then life beginning in its lowest 
vegetative forms and advancing through aquatic 

worth and reformatory power, [viz. : in purifying countries of 
idolatries, and sweeping away superstitions ; in keeping fresh 
and fruitful faith in one God and the common parentage of 
man]. " These traditions of the creation never became powers 
of a growing religious history. They are like stagnant pools 
of water, themselves choked with corruptions, — not flowing 
fountains of life. They did not stir and cleanse the moral 
stagnation of Babylon. The vital power of truth to create a 
purer and growing life is the characteristic virtue of the very 
first words of inspiration. A thoughtful man, with the Bibli- 
cal truth of the Creator working as a moral force in his soul, 
became the father of a nation whose end is not yet." — Old 
Faiths in New Light, by Newman Smyth, p. 74. 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

animal life to terrestrial, all finally culminating 
in the appearance of man. The celestial bodies, 
sun, moon, and stars, are mentioned just when 
they must have first shone through the murky 
atmosphere of the cooling earth. The only 
difficulty is, that when the beginning of vegeta- 
tion has been mentioned its story is continued 
without break to its culmination ; and the same 
thing is done, also, with marine life. Is there 
any way of accounting for this consistently with 
the supposition that the whole story emanated 
from Omniscience ? AVe think it is not merely 
accounted for, but necessitated by the circum- 
stances of the revelation. For this revelation 
must be given in such wise as to be compre- 
hended by a rude people, and therefore must be 
given without the vise of scientific terms ; and 
in accordance with the proportion of revelation 
it must be given very briefly. Its purpose is 
not to teach natural science, but to show that all 
things come from God. 1 Whether the revela- 

1 And thus to prepare for the possibility of future science. 
" If we may suppose the existence of a Divine Instructor 
whose intention it was in the course of time to open to the 
knowledge of man the secrets of the earth, and to educate the 
world at length into a thorough conception of the order of na- 
ture ; then we may say that he gave one of the first conditions 
of that knowledge, and provided one of the necessary prepa- 
rations for that future education, by freeing the mind of man 
from subjection to the powers of nature, and setting the hu- 
man soul above the world, as itself made in the divine image, 



INTRODUCTION, 19 

tion was made by vision, or by whatever other 
method, its object could hardly be otherwise ac- 
complished than in the way it has been, by men- 
tioning in succession the great features of the 
world, and saying that God made each of them. 
To have said that He made first the humbler 
forms of vegetation, particularizing them ; and 
then the humbler forms of animal life, particu- 
larizing these too ; and then the higher forms, 
first of the one, and then of the other ; and 
lastly the highest of each of them in succession, 
would but have introduced prolixity and unnec- 
essary confusion of mind. No wise man now 
would be likely to adopt such a method of teach- 
ing his child. He would tell him that God 
made all things, — the earth and the sky, the 
sun, moon, and stars ; He made the grass, too, 
and the trees ; the fishes and the birds and the 
animals ; and last of all He made man. This is 
precisely what the Omniscient taught those who 
were in their spiritual infancy. In this teach- 
ing there is no evidence of the error of imper- 
fect knowledge, but only of an adaptation to the 
exigencies under which the revelation must be 
made. It leads men at once to the great fea- 

and, in short, by first drilling' patiently the human reason and 
heart into those pure monotheistic conceptions which distin- 
guish the religion of the Bible." — Old Faiths in New Light , 
pp. 136, 137. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

tures of the truth ; it leads them to the exact 
detail, as far as they were capable of being led 
at the time ; its apparent error is simply from 
its generality and its brevity. To have been 
more precisely accurate, merely to teach a scien- 
tific detail which man in due time could and 
would find out for himself, would have required 
a prolixity unsuited to the occasion. 

It may be said, in this and several other cases, 
that the result is the same, whether we suppose 
the statements to be those of imperfect human 
knowledge, or of Omniscience adapting itself to 
human ignorance ; in either case, the imperfect 
statement remains. In a certain sense this is 
true, and is a necessity of any progressive reve- 
lation, and, in fact, of any revelation, to men of 
limited knowledge ; but the view to be taken of 
the Scriptures depends greatly on whether we 
consider this imperfection the result of man's 
speculation or of God's condescension. In the 
one case, we have the human element of the Bible 
without limitation, and can rely upon it only in 
so far as man's wisdom is trustworthy ; in the 
other, we have the teaching of Omniscience it- 
self, and only need to take into account that He 
taught men according as they were able to bear. 
The cosmogony of Genesis, to say the least, is 
consistent with the latter hypothesis. 

The three examples now given are enough to 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

show how all alleged errors of this kind may be 
treated, i. e., all errors which are sometimes con- 
sidered as the result of imperfect knowledge, 
and especially those which come within the scope 
of natural science. They are due not to the hu- 
man imperfection of the writers, but to that of 
the readers ; they are simply the necessary limi- 
tation of revelation in making itself intelligible 
to those to whom it was given. They are con- 
sistent, therefore, with the view that all the 
teaching of the Scriptures is controlled by infi- 
nite knowledge, and that the human writers 
have been so limited as to prevent their intro- 
ducing into them the errors of their own private 
notions. Not, of course, that the Omniscient 
can be convicted of imperfect knowledge, but 
that for man's sake he has seen fit to use such 
language and such incomplete statements as 
man has been able to receive, and which should 
ultimately become the means, through the spir- 
itual education they afforded him, of enabling 
man himself, in some degree, to fill out what 
was insufficient in them. 

This leads to the consideration of another 
class of errors with which the Bible is charged. 
From its earliest to its latest books there is evi- 
dent a gradually growing conception of the spir- 
ituality and infinity of the Father of all. The 
representation of God as walking in the garden 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

in the cool of the day, and inquiring of guilty 
man where he might be found, would be out of 
place in the New Testament, and would clash 
with the way in which the divine Being is there 
spoken of. Hence it is argued that the Old 
Testament conception of God is a human and a 
false one ; that it represents Him as an exagger- 
ated man, changing His plans and repenting of 
what He has done, pleased with one action of His 
creatures, grieved with another, and frequently 
using purely human methods and contrivances 
for the accomplishment of His purposes. It may 
be remarked, in passing, that the same objec- 
tion applies — in a less degree, indeed, but still 
in its essential point — to the Xew Testament 
also, and to all human discourse about the infi- 
nite ; for this must of necessity be expressed 
chiefly in concrete and figurative terms. But 
this remark does not meet the difficulty ; for, 
whatever be the necessities of human language, 
there is a manifest progress in the course of the 
long ages during which the composition of the 
various books of the Bible was going on. Dur- 
ing these ages man's conception of God was 
purified and exalted, and, as this change is re- 
flected in the books of the various ages, it is 
easy to attribute the change in the books them- 
selves to the improved conceptions of the writers. 
On this supposition, whatever is imperfect and 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

erroneous belongs to the writers, and gives evi- 
dence that the human element has not been so 
limited as to prevent the introduction of error. 

An entirely different view may also be taken 
of these errors, referring them to the Omniscient 
Source of the Scriptures ; and if this view be- 
comes on examination probable, or even possi- 
ble, the basis of any sure inferences from the 
opposite view will be taken away. If it can be 
still farther shown that even the earlier Scrip- 
tural conceptions of the Deity embrace features 
which were beyond the reach of the men of the 
time, or of any time, except as they have been 
taught by revelation, then it will be clear that 
the representations, as a whole, come from a 
divine source, and cannot be considered as errors 
at all, except in the same sense as those already 
considered. An examination of the facts will 
lead to the latter conclusion. 

Nothing can be more true than the assertion 
of modern philosophy that the Infinite Being is, 
and must always have been, in his own ultimate 
essence, unknowable to finite man. Were it 
conceivable that He should reveal Himself as He 
is, the revelation would have no value or signifi- 
cance for us, because we could not understand 
it. Any useful revelation must be in terms 
adapted to the human understanding, and hence 
must be partial and imperfect, and, in that 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

sense, erroneous. Nevertheless, it may be of the 
utmost value, not because of the side which is 
imperfect, but because of that partial truth 
which man could not otherwise attain. And this 
being attained leads on to ever higher and 
higher, though still imperfect, truth, and mean- 
time enables man to guide his life in far closer 
correspondence to the divine will than would 
otherwise be practicable. The possibility of a 
revelation is here assumed, although this is not 
the place to inquire how it is possible. The per- 
sonal conviction of the writer is clear that it can 
only be made through a Mediator, — that the 
infinite and the finite, the divine and the human, 
are incommensurable terms, which can only be 
brought together in one who partakes of the 
nature of both, and hence that the incarnation is 
the fundamental fact in the possibility of revela- 
tion. But however this may be, we assume that 
a revelation exists, and we are concerned only to 
know what are the limitations upon its human 
side. Revelation must be given in terms adapted 
to human comprehension in order to be intelligi- 
ble : and hence it follows that it must be given 
at various times, in terms adapted to the vary- 
ing capacities of those times. In the spiritual 
infancy of the race it must be vastly more an- 
thropomorphic than is necessary after thousands 
of years of continued spiritual education. And 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

after the higher revelation has been given, it 
will still be desirable that the earlier, and in 
this respect lower, shall remain for the benefit 
of those not yet prepared for the higher; and 
this is a condition through which all pass in the 
course of their lives, and in which, perhaps, some 
remain permanently fixed. 

If, therefore, the fact be accepted that God is 
what in the imperfection of our language we are 
fain to describe as merciful and loving, it follows 
that in any revelation of himself he will not 
reveal himself perfectly, — that is, absolutely 
truly, — but only partially, as man is able to 
bear it; and this must be, in a certain sense, 
untruly or erroneously. Kevelation must, there- 
fore, be marked in different ages by different 
degrees of this imperfection or so-called errone- 
ousness of teaching. Men must be trained 
through inferior conceptions — such conceptions 
as it was possible to awaken in them without 
violating the laws of their nature — to enable 
them to rise to higher ones : they must be ap- 
pealed to through motives and feelings they can 
understand, before they can be led up to those 
which at first they could not understand. It was 
necessary to insist long and earnestly upon mono- 
theism before the mystery of the Trinity could 
be safely taught. It is, therefore, possible that 
what at first sight seems to belong to the faulty 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

conceptions of the human writers of the Bible 
may really be a part of the progressive divine 
teaching. As far as yet considered, indeed, it 
might belong to either ; and since the growing 
capacity of man for higher and purer revela- 
tion is parallel with his actually higher and 
purer conception of God, we might be uncertain 
to which of them to refer this progress. It is 
necessary, then, to inquire if these imperfect 
revelations have any characteristics which indis- 
putably bespeak a divine origin. There need 
be no difficulty in finding them. 

One of the most striking features in the Scrip- 
tural representation of the Divine Being from 
first to last, and all along with these anthropo- 
morphic representations, is, that no man shall 
see God and live ; that He dwells in light which 
no man can approach unto ; that He is not a 
man that He should repent, but that with Him is 
neither variableness nor shadow of turning ; that 
no man by searching can find Him out; and 
many like expressions. Such teaching, although 
it becomes clearer as man became better edu- 
cated to receive it, is yet scattered through books 
by the most various writers, and at great dis- 
tances of time, and makes it plain that anthro- 
pomorphic representations are also used in them 
only as of necessity, and for man's sake. That 
there might be no real misunderstanding, the 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

declarations just mentioned are interspersed 
with these representations, showing as clearly as 
the language of any modern philosophy that the 
Scriptures understood God, in His absolute es- 
sence, to be unknowable and unapproachable by 
his creature. Now, this was not a doctrine of hu- 
man invention. In the philosophies of antiquity 
it appears only in their profound est treatises, 
never in popular teaching ; and it does not ap- 
pear at all until long ages after it had been an- 
nounced in the Scriptures. Moreover, it never 
appears with the fullness and distinctness of 
enunciation which it has in the Bible. Here, 
then, is the clear mark of a divine source, — the 
sign-manual of more than human knowledge ; 
and this is so interwoven with the other rep- 
resentations that they cannot be disentangled. 
Thus the doubt is solved, and what might other- 
wise have been considered as the result of human 
imperfection is shown to be the effect of divine 
condescension. This class of errors, then, like 
those which have gone before, are in no other 
sense really errors than as they are imperfect 
representations of the truth, adapted to the wants 
and capacities of those to whom they were given ; 
and at the same time they are so connected with 
other statements as to show that there was a lim- 
itation put on the expression of the human no- 
tions of the writer, so that he was to teach, on 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

the whole, what was beyond the reach of merely 
human thought. 

There is another kind of alleged error, of a 
more technical kind, which must be considered 
here, that it may not be in the way farther on. 
There are frequently in the different books dupli- 
cate accounts of the same transaction, and these 
do not always agree ; and there is sometimes in 
a later book a quotation or a reference which 
does not, at least upon its face, answer exactly 
to the original. Such divergences are often 
disposed of by the remark that they arise simply 
from the individualities of the writers, their 
differences of recollection, their habits of mind, 
their misunderstandings of what they read, and 
their mental prepossessions ; just as similar di- 
vergences are seen in the testimony of conscien- 
tious witnesses in our courts of justice, or in 
varying reports of conversation or of public ad- 
dresses. It is certainly unnecessary to eliminate 
this human mould of the Scriptures altogether. 
It constitutes, e. g., one of the peculiar charms 
of the fourfold portraiture of our Lord in the 
Gospels. It is important, nevertheless, to know 
its limits ; it is important to know if actual 
errors, even in matters of secondary importance, 
do occur, so that we cannot be better assured of 
the truth of the casual statements of the Bible 
than of those of other historians ; or whether, 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

whatever be the individual coloring of the narra- 
tive, we can yet rely upon every positive state- 
ment of the sacred books as absolutely true. In 
other words, the question here comes up, as in 
other cases, whether these alleged errors are due 
to the imperfect knowledge and faulty ideas of 
the human writers, or whether inspiration has so 
watched over and guarded them that they have 
been restrained from any even trivial misstate- 
ments. It is, of course, impossible to examine 
here all debatable passages. Only a few of the 
more vexed and difficult cases can be selected as 
examples of the whole. 

The general principle in the comparison of 
seemingly inconsistent accounts in ancient docu- 
ments is the same as is now observed in regard 
to testimony in any modern court of justice, — 
before pronouncing either of them false, it is to 
be seen whether there is not some rational and 
likely hypothesis in regard to the circumstances 
which will bring both accounts into harmony. 
Or, if this fails, it is to be asked whether each 
witness must not have been aware of the facts 
stated by the other, and yet, without other mo- 
tive than a desire to tell the truth, has given a 
different version of them. In the latter case 
there is reason to suppose that both are true, 
although at our distance from the events we 
cannot suggest any hypothesis which will bring 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

them into consistency. The discrepancies be- 
tween the evangelists have so long attracted 
attention that little need be said of them. Es- 
pecially in regard to the varying accounts of 
the resurrection of our Lord, long the stalking 
horse of infidelity, it is worth while to remember 
that West, a few generations ago, undertook to 
demonstrate from his deistical standpoint the 
falsity of the Gospels, by showing their absolute 
inconsistency in this narrative ; he examined 
them with a clear head and an honest heart, and 
the result was his famous treatise on the resur- 
rection, and his own conversion into a Christian 
believer. 

We select, as one of the most apparently con- 
tradictory narratives, the healing of the blind 
man, or men, near Jericho. It has long been 
recognized that there is no real difficulty here, 
as in several other cases in the mention of two 
blind men by one of the evangelists (Matt. xx. 
80), while the others (Mark x. 46 ; Luke xviii. 
35) speak only of the one, Bartimaeus, who es- 
pecially attracted attention. But both Matthew 
and Mark expressly say that the event occurred 
when they had departed from Jericho, while 
Luke is equally definite in saying that it was 
when Jesus was drawing near to the city {lv t<2 
iyy%av avrbv ek 'Iepe^)- All attempts to explain 
the latter phrase as meaning only while they 



INTRODUCTION. 31 

were near must be given up as strained and un- 
supported by usage. But it is altogether likely 
that our Lord on this journey spent several days 
at Jericho, and that, as was His custom at Jerusa- 
lem, and is still the common custom in visiting 
Eastern cities, He slept in the country, and came 
daily into the city. This supposition, which is 
not only possible^ but in itself probable, removes 
the whole difficulty. Matthew and Mark speak 
of the miracle as wrought when He had gone 
out from the city ; Luke, more particularly, as 
exactly when He was entering it again on His 
morning return. The various records of Peter's 
denials of his Master, and other seeming dis- 
crepancies, are all brought into accord by even 
more simple suppositions ; but this one example 
must here suffice. An intelligent exegesis, seek- 
ing harmony, will always find it without strain. 

In the citation of the Old Testament it is by 
no means necessary to suppose that the New 
Testament writers always intended to quote it 
according to its original meaning. Their minds 
were full of its language, and it was natural for 
them to express what they had to say, just as 
men do now, in terms with which they had been 
familiar from childhood, without a thought that 
the passage had originally the application given 
to it in their quotation. They would also some- 
times see an application of what had been said 



32 INTRODUCTION-. 

of events long gone by to occurrences of their 
own time too a loropos to pass unnoticed, just as 
is clone in our own day ; and in such cases they 
might very well introduce their application by 
saying, " It has come to pass according as it is 
written,'' or " Thus was the Scripture fulfilled," 
without imagining that the old Scripture itself 
looked to any such application. Passages of 
this kind, however, are fewer than is sometimes 
supposed, and the common sense of mankind is 
sufficient to deal with them. 

There are many passages of the Old Testament 
also cited argumentatively, and it is alleged that 
in some of these the argument is faulty through 
a misinterpretation of the quotation. These 
will be considered presently, in connection with 
alleged errors of reasoning. Meantime there 
are several quotations with which fault is found 
on other grounds. 

Perhaps the most classic instances are in the 
speech of Stephen (Acts vii.). In discussing 
these it is to be remembered who lie was, — " a 
man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost " and 
" of power," and of a wisdom that his adversa- 
ries could not resist (Acts vi. 5-10). He was 
familiar with the history of his people, and spoke 
to an audience fully competent and well disposed 
to trip him up in any slip. His object was not 
to instruct them in their history, but to prove 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

from its familiar facts that they sinned in reject- 
ing Jesus as their Messiah. Under these cir- 
cumstances, it is in the highest degree unlikely 
that he would have made any errors. If any 
statements appear to us wrong, after the lapse 
of eighteen hundred years, the presumption is 
strong that Stephen knew more about the facts 
than we do. Yet this presumption is only a 
priori ; the facts must be taken as they are. 
Almost his first statement is, that God called 
Abraham " when he was in Mesopotamia, before 
he dwelt in Charran " ; and, accordingly, the 
English Bible reads, in Gen. xii. 1 : u Now the 
Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy 
country," etc. ; but the critics say that this is an 
incorrect translation, made for the purpose of 
bringing the passage into accord with Stephen. 
We doubt this. The Hebrew certainly does not 
express the pluperfect, because it has no form 
for that tense, and must depend upon the con- 
text for its indication. We think such indica- 
tion is found here, especially in the mention of 
the country and kindred and father's house 
which Abram was to leave, and which were cer- 
tainly not left in Haran ; and hence we consider 
the English Bible right in its translation. 1 But 

1 The following instances in which the imperfect with 3 
bears a pluperfect sense are at least worthy of consideration : 
Gen. ii. 19 ; xxvi. 18 ; xxxi. 34 ; xli. 21 ; Ex. xxxiii. 5 ; Judg. i. 
8 ; ii. 6 ; 1 Sam. xiv. 24 ; xxviii. 3 ; 2 Sam. xiv. 33 ; Isa c 
xxxviii. 21, 22; xxxix. 1. 



34 INTRODUCTION. 

waiving this, there is a distinct statement in Gen. 
xv. 7 : " I am the Lord that brought thee out of 
Ur of the Chaldees," so that Stephen had good 
authority for what he said. A more serious diffi- 
culty is found a little further on, where he states 
(vcr. 16) that the twelve patriarchs were buried 
" in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a 
sum of money of the sons of Emm or the father 
of Sychem." Now, we know that Abraham 
bought a cave for a sepulchre at Mamre, but Jo- 
seph and his brethren were not buried there ; 
we know, also, that Jacob bought a piece of land 
of the sons of Hamor near Shechem, and Joseph 
was buried there. Is it possible that Stephen, 
in the haste of his utterance, mixed the two 
facts, and attributed to Abraham the purchase 
which belonged to Jacob ? We think not ; be- 
cause, in all probability, Abraham was the origi- 
nal purchaser of the same land afterwards pur- 
chased by Jacob, and this fact was known to 
Stephen. The evidence is as follows : The land 
about Shechem was already occupied (Gen. xii. 
G, 7) when Abraham built an altar there. There 
were but three ways in which he could have done 
this : he must either have built it on the Shechem- 
ites' land, by their sufferance — an unlikely pro- 
cedure for Abraham, and one giving no security 
for the sacredness of the altar ; or he must have 
taken it by violence, which is improbable in the 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

extreme ; or, finally, he must have purchased it, 
which it is reasonable to suppose he did. A cen- 
tury or more afterwards Jacob came to the same 
place, and also wished to build an altar, presum- 
ably on the site of his grandfather's. But the 
land being occupied, this field would not have 
been left so long idle, and Jacob doubtless found 
it in some one's possession. If he would reclaim 
it, it must be either by his sword, or by a fresh 
purchase. No one familiar with Jacob's charac- 
ter can doubt his choice, and his purchase is re- 
corded. The facts, however, make it probable 
that Abraham had purchased it before, and 
hence that Stephen was right. 1 Some other 
minor points in this speech, which cannot be 
considered here, are satisfactorily solved, if care- 
fully considered. The two noticed, which are 
the most difficult, may serve for examples of all. 
There are also inaccuracies in the New Testa- 
ment quotations from the Old. When these do 
not affect the substance of the quotation it is 

1 The more common solution of this difficulty — that Abra- 
ham in Acts vii. 16, is an erroneous reading for Jacob — is not 
here taken into view, partly because there is no external evi- 
dence for it, and conjectural emendations are hazardous ; and 
partly because the ellipsis rov Sux^/t as it stands in the text, 
rec would not admit of being supplied (as it is in the A. V.) by 
irar'fjp ; while the better reading is kv Suxe'jU. The person of 
whom Jacob purchased appears to have been a different per- 
son from the one of whom Abraham purchased, though having 
the same patronymic. 



36 INTRODUCTION. 

enough to say that, as the case may be, the quo- 
tation is from the Septuagint, the version in 
common use, without stopping to criticise it, or 
is freely translated from the original, or even 
sometimes is loosely quoted from memory. But 
there are cases in which the Septuagint is quoted 
when it differs in an important point from the 
original. The most striking instance is in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews (x. 5) : " Sacrifice and 
burnt-offering thou wouldest not, but a body 
hast thou prepared me." It is notorious that 
the word " body " is not in the original, and is 
quoted in the Septuagint. If this were an un- 
important word, it would attract no attention, 
because it would not have been worth the writer's 
while to go out of the way to correct it ; but as 
the discourse is of Christ's atonement, at first 
sight this word seems very important. But a 
closer examination shows that the whole stress 
of the passage and the whole argument from the 
quotation rests upon Christ's having come to do 
the Father's will. The contrast is drawn be- 
tween the imperfect way of removing sins by the 
sacrifices of old, and the perfect way through 
Christ's obedience. The word " body " was so 
entirely immaterial to the argument that when, 
in summing up, the quotation is repeated to 
clinch the conclusion, it is without the clause 
containing this word. 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

This instance closely connects itself with al- 
leged errors of reasoning. Our Lord himself 
and His apostles also reason largely from the 
Old Testament. This is the only authority 
which Christ recognizes at all ; and while He 
subordinates even this to His own teaching, He 
yet bases arguments upon its language, and posi- 
tively declares, " One jot or one tittle shall in 
no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." 
The apostles everywhere assume that the Old 
Testament was accepted as a matter of course 
with Christianity ; and even with heathen con- 
verts (as, e. g., the Galatians) they reason from 
Old Testament types and shadows to Christian 
verities. It is asserted that some of this reason- 
ing is illogical and inconsequential, is fashioned 
after the rabbinical methods of argument, and 
is a clear case of the human element, unre- 
strained and uncontrolled, coming to the surface 
in the word of God. 

A full answer to this allegation could only be 
made by a careful examination of every passage 
by which it is thought to be sustained. This is 
impossible within our limits ; but, as in other 
cases, a few of the more difficult instances may 
be taken as examples of the rest. The argu- 
ments in question are chiefly in the Epistles of 
Paul, and in that to the Hebrews. It is admitted 
that the writer was an intelligent man, gifted 



38 INTRODUCTION. 

with no small degree of logical acumen. His 
main arguments, too, are powerful, and generally 
convincing. The question is about some minor 
details, which were satisfactory enough to his 
contemporaries, but which are now criticised as 
resting upon a faulty exegesis of the passages 
quoted, while the reasoning based upon them is 
said to savor of rabbinical subtlety, rather than 
of manly and fair argument. These are some- 
times defended on the ground of the lawfulness 
of the argumentum ad homlnem ; but this is 
hardly satisfactory. Either the reasoning must 
be shown to be fair, and based upon sound pre- 
mises, or else it must be recognized as the result 
of the imperfection of the human writers, which 
inspiration has not controlled sufficiently to pre- 
vent the introduction of error into the Scrip- 
tures. The latter alternative may seem, at first 
sight, the easier ; but we are not entitled to 
adopt it until some case can be pointed out in 
which it is clearly required. The a priori pre- 
sumption must always be against it in books 
which confessedly contain so much of the di- 
vine teaching. The most frequently cited in- 
stances are one in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
and two in that to the Galatians. If all these 
are found to be sound arguments, without the 
aid of rabbinical casuistry, other alleged in- 
stances will still more readily yield before a fair 
and careful examination. 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

The case referred to in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews is that in which the superiority of the 
Melchisedecan to the Aaronic priesthood is 
shown by Abraham's payment of tithes to Mel- 
chisedec (Heb. vii. 4-10). The argument here 
is this : All spiritual authority is from God, and 
there can be no disturbance of the relations He 
has established. He gave certain blessings and 
privileges to Melchisedec, and also certain ones 
to Abraham and his descendants. The relation 
which existed between these two must continue 
in after ages to be the relation between those 
who draw their authority from them respectively. 
Now, Abraham recognized the spiritual superior- 
ity of Melchisedec; therefore the spiritual au- 
thority of the priesthood derived from Melchise- 
dec must be superior to that derived from 
Abraham. Incidentally, the author remarks, 
" And (as I may so say) Levi also, who receiv- 
eth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham ; for he was 
yet in the loins of his father when Melchisedec 
met him ; " but this is an illustration, not an 
argument, and even as illustration is qualified 
by the " as I may so say." The assumption of 
a fallacy here rests upon the supposition that 
the argument culminates in this clause ; whereas 
it is complete without it, except as this points 
the fact that Levi was descended from Abraham. 
The only flaw in the argument as it stands is 



40 INTBODUCTION. 

met by the author a little further on. It might 
be that the Levitical priesthood, being expressly 
established by God, had received a higher au- 
thority than belonged to the spiritual position of 
Abraham, and thus have been raised even above 
that of Melchisedec. The apostle shows elabo- 
rately that this was not the ease, and his argu- 
ment remains intact. 

The two cases in Galatians may be taken in 
the order in w r hich they occur. In the first (iii. 
15, 16) Paul argues that the promise made to 
Abraham and his seed, rather than to his seeds, 
must apply to Christ. The difficulty arises sim- 
ply from not observing wherein the apostle's 
argument really lies. Unquestionably the word 
" seed," whether in Hebrew, Greek, or English, 
is a collective term, and had the promise to 
Abraham been meant to be distributed to all his 
numerous posterity it would still have been 
couched in the same terms. No sound argu- 
ment, therefore, can be drawn from the use of 
the singular rather than the plural ; nor is this 
the apostle's design. He has, indeed, been sup- 
posed to argue from this, and therefore to argue 
fallaciously ; but he does not do so. He sup- 
poses some things to be known to his readers, 
and among them the nature of the promise to 
Abraham. The primeval promise to fallen man 
was that the seed of the woman should bruise 



INTRODUCTION. 41 

the serpent's head, that, in the long struggle 
with the power of evil, one born of woman should 
at last win the victory. Upon this promise was 
based the hope of every God-fearing man through 
the long ages of corruption that followed ; and 
from time to time, as at the birth of Cain and of 
Noah, this hope found definite expression. Its 
realization had been still deferred; and when 
Abraham was told that in his seed all the fam- 
ilies of the earth should be blessed, he must 
have understood it meant that the promised 
Redeemer should be born of his line. Through- 
out, this expectation was that of a personal 
Redeemer. Trench well says, " No thoughtful 
student of the past records of mankind can 
refuse to acknowledge that through all its his- 
tory there has been the hope of a redemption 
from the evil which oppresses it ; nor of this 
only, but that this hope has continually linked 
itself on to some single man. The help that is 
coming to the world, it has ever seen incorpor- 
ated in a person." 1 It is to this promise that 
Paul refers, and it is from the nature of this 
promise that he argues. The promise, he says, 
was not to the posterity of Abraham generally, 
but to this one, this Redeemer, who is Christ. 

1 Trench, Hulsean Lectures, 1846, Lecture ii., p. 28. See 
this passage treated more at length in a " Note on Gal. iii. 
16," in the Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1879, p. 23. 



42 INTRODUCTION. 

To express compactly and tersely his meaning, 
he uses the words, " He saith not, And to seeds, 
as of many ; but as of one, and to thy seed, 
which is Christ. " His argument is not drawn 
from the word, but from the nature of the prom- 
ise ; and that nature of the promise he expresses, 
as the most compact and convenient way, by the 
singular and plural of the word " seed." 

The other case is that of the beautiful alle- 
gory from the history of Hagar and Sarah and 
their descendants, used by Paul to set forth the 
relations of Jews and Gentiles under the Gospel 
(Gal. iv. 21-31). It is alleged that the apostle, 
under the influence of his rabbinical education, 
has here been guilty of founding an important 
argument upon what should have been a mere 
illustration. Paul was undoubtedly a man who 
made all his human acquisitions tell to the ad- 
vancement of his Master's cause, and frequently 
brings the familiar story of the Old Testament 
to the enforcement and illustration of gospel 
truth (as in 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10 ; x. 1-11, etc.) ; 
but the precise question here is, — and this is 
important in its bearing on the general subject, 
— whether he does this after the rabbinical 
fashion of subtle and inconsequential argument, 
or whether the tendency to this, which might 
have been expected from his education, is so 
overruled and controlled by the Spirit of inspi- 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

ration as to allow of his using only arguments 
which are really sound and forcible. None can 
doubt the appropriateness of the references here, 
and in other places, as illustrations. It is plain, 
too, that they have force as arguments to this 
extent — that when it has been already shown 
that parties under the gospel occupy the same 
relations as other parties did under the law, 
then what is predicated of those relations in the 
one case will hold good in the other also. This 
is precisely what is done in the passage before 
us. There was in the old time a child of nature 
and a child of promise, and under the gospel 
there is the same. The child of nature of old 
was the child of the bondmaid, and followed his 
mother's condition ; and the same is true now ; 
the Jew is the child of Abraham by nature, and 
is under the bondage of the law to which he was 
born. The child of promise was by the free- 
woman, and answers to those who come into the 
gospel covenant by promise, and not by natural 
descent, and are therefore free from the law. 
Paul, recognizing the historical truth of the 
events to which he refers, says that they truly 
represent — as they certainly do — the relation 
between mere natural inheritance and inherit- 
ance by promise, and shows that this is the very 
relation between Jews and Christians under the 
gospel. He then draws from this relation a 



44 li\ i u Olfuvi i on. 

forcible and legitimate argument. There seems 
to be here no ground for a charge of error. 
There is also a minor point objected to in the 
incidental statement that a local name of Mount 
Sinai was Hagar, of which sufficient external 
evidence is wanting ; but Paul had himself been 
on the ground, and his assertion is quite as 
trustworthy as that of any other traveler, and, 
moreover, does not at all affect his argument. 

The part of this whole subject most perplex- 
ing to some minds is in what is considered the 
faulty morality, particularly of the older parts 
of the Old Testament. Polygamy, slavery, re- 
venge, the punishment of the innocent for the 
sin of the guilty, the extermination of whole 
nations — and that too in bloody wars — by the 
hands of the chosen people, the success of 
Jacob's deceit, the praise of Jael's perfidy, 
— these are among the things which strike 
strangely on the Christian's ear, and seem in- 
consistent with the character of an All-holy 
God. Do these, indeed, come from the divine 
source of the Scriptures, or are they the teach- 
ings of men enlightened only to the standard 
of the times in which they lived? Many things 
are narrated in the Bible simply as historical 
facts, for the morality of which it is in no way 
responsible. Immoral acts, also, are sometimes 
recorded of the saints, such as Abraham's deceit 



INTRODUCTION. 45 

or Peter's denial of his Master, and should be 
eliminated from the discussion, because the Scrip- 
tures in no way commend them, even where they 
do not openly denounce them. Other evils, like 
polygamy, though always opposed to God's will, 
as our Lord shows from the narrative of crea- 
tion itself, "were suffered for the hardness of 
men's hearts " among a people yet unable to 
bear a higher morality ; yet the evil was miti- 
gated and restrained as far as was practicable 
at the time. So also was slavery. The law was 
unable to forbid it ; even Christianity did not 
directly do this ; but the old dispensation in 
every possible way modified and reduced its 
evils. After these things \have been said, how- 
ever, there remains much that seems dark and 
inexplicable. The lex talionis of the Penta- 
teuch was not merely permissive but obligatory. 
" Thine eye shall not pity ; but life shall go for 
life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, 
foot for foot " (Deut. xix. 21). How shall this 
be reconciled with the gospel law of returning 
love for hatred, and good deeds for evil ? Be- 
cause the condition of the people required such 
commands, in order that they might thereby be 
made fit for a higher standard. Principles of 
justice must be implanted in the mind as a nec- 
essary basis for those of love. The monsters of 
the Carboniferous era must precede the develop- 



46 INTRODUCTION. 

ment of life in the Tertiary, and that in turn 
must prepare the way for the age of Man ; yet 
to Him who ordered the earth from the begin- 
ning those Carboniferous monsters were good in 
their day, and we now see no unfitness in their 
formation under the guiding hand of Him who 
was leading our earth on to a higher state. 
So in the spiritual development of our race, as 
far as we can judge, it was necessary that God 
should govern man according to his capacities, 
and give him laws suited to his condition. 
Only thus could he be advanced to a higher 
standard ; only by impressing on a lawless peo- 
ple, given to unbridled license of revenge, a 
sense of exact justice and of the rights of others 
could they be prepared for a higher teaching. 1 
At the same time, it is to be remembered that 
higher principles were everywhere embodied in 
the law for such as were able to receive them. 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " 
(Lev. xix. 18) was a precept of Leviticus, as 
well as of the gospel. These considerations, 
fairly applied to the circumstances, will account 
for what otherwise may seem strange and anom- 
alous in the law. 

But why should the people who were thus to 
be trained to better things have been made the 
executors of God's wrath, thereby accustoming 

1 See, on this subject, Mozley, Ruling Ideas in the Early Ages. 



INTRODUCTION. 47 

them to deeds of savage cruelty, and teaching 
them to imbrue their hands with the blood of 
defenseless women and unweaned children, as 
well as with that of the warrior ? Why, too, 
in the judgments upon individual offenders, as 
Dathan and Abiram, or Achan, should sentence 
have been executed also upon their innocent 
wives and little ones ? The answer to both these 
and other like questions is essentially the same. 
Men always have stood, and they still stand, not 
merely in an individual, but also in a federal, 
relation to God. This is plain everywhere under 
what is called God's natural government of the 
world. People suffer or prosper according to 
the acts of their rulers ; families are affected by 
the conduct of their head ; children inherit not 
merely the fortunes, but the idiosyncrasies of 
their parents. Why the world should have been 
so constituted we cannot here inquire ; but the 
fact is plain ; and if revelation came from the 
same Author as nature we must expect to find 
in it the same general features. The institution 
of the Christian church is one great example of 
it ; and whatever blessing, whatever grace comes 
to the individual by its instrumentality is in con- 
sequence of the federal relation in which the be- 
liever, over and above his individual relation, 
stands to his Master. So strong was this rela- 
tion of old that the prophet could say (Num. 



48 INTRODUCTION. 

xxiii. 21) : God " hath not beheld iniquity in 
Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in 
Israel," at the very time when He was punish- 
ing tens of thousands among them for their 
gross and outrageous sins. This federal rela- 
tion was stronger and relatively more important 
in ancient than in modern times. The progress 
of revelation has always tended to bring out the 
individual more clearly as he stands by himself 
before God, and although the federal relation 
still exists, it is of much less relative impor- 
tance than formerly. Anciently, nations existed 
chiefly as nations, and families as families, and 
men understood little of any other relation. 
They looked upon a nation as an organic whole, 
and upon a family as an appurtenance and pos- 
session of its head. When, then, a nation, as 
the Amalekites or Canaanites, had arrayed itself 
as a whole against the church of God, how was 
it to be dealt with ? The divine judgment, to 
have any value, must be made intelligible alike 
to friends and foes. Men could distinguish but 
little between the individual and the nation of 
which he was a part. Sometimes there might 
be such a striking instance of faith as that of 
Rahab, when it became possible to spare the 
individual 1 in the destruction of the doomed 
city ; but generally, if the divine judgment was 
1 But even so, her whole family must be spared with her. 



INTBODUCTION. 49 

to be effective, to make an impression, to es- 
tablish God's government of the world, it must 
be sweeping and comprehensive. The Israel- 
ites could not have understood that God was 
very seriously displeased with Achan, except his 
family also were involved in the same sentence. 
They could not have believed in the divine de- 
testation of the sins of the Canaanites, unless 
it had been commanded that the whole people 
should be utterly swept away. In this case 
there was the further object of removing all con- 
taminating influences from the one people upon 
earth whose vocation it was to keep alive the 
knowledge of the true God. 1 

But these commands are sometimes coupled 
with an appeal to lower motives which look like 
the mere outcome of hereditary revenge. God 
says to Saul (1 Sam. xv. 2, 3), " I remember 
that which Amalek did to Israel. . . . Now go 
and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that 
they have. ... Slay both man and woman, in- 
fant and suckling." In the light of what has 
been said, it may be possible to explain the ne- 
cessity for the destruction of Amalek ; but why 
should an appeal be made for this purpose to 
the hereditary national sentiment of revenge ? 
We can only answer that man is of a mixed 

1 See Arnold's Sermons, vi. 35-37, quoted by Stanley in 
Jewish Church, vol. L, p. 283. 



50 INTRODUCTION. 

nature ; and God, in leading him to do His will, 
lias always appealed, and still appeals, not only 
to the highest motives of love and duty and 
gratitude, but also to self-interest and gain. As 
we are constituted, such appeals are a help to 
us, even now in the full sunlight of the gospel, 
in our heavenward path, with which we could 
not dispense ; how much more to those in their 
spiritual infancy in the dim twilight of the law. 
Even here, however, the appeal is not to revenge 
for personal injuries, but to revenge for injuries 
inflicted long generations ago upon their people 
as the church of God. 

It is always to be remembered, moreover, that 
these judgments in which the innocent were in- 
volved with the guilty were purely temporal in 
their character, like the consequences to the 
ship's company now of the carelessness of the 
engineer, and have nothing to do with rewards 
or punishments beyond the grave. It may have 
been that the wife of Dathan was received into 
paradise, or that some of the children of liahab 
received the doom of the impenitent. These 
judgments may be likened to the earthquake 
which cuts off all the inhabitants of a city, good 
and bad alike. 

Still, it is asked, why should the Israelites 
have been made the instruments of these judg- 
ments, which accustomed the chosen people to 



INTRODUCTION. 51 

deeds of cruelty and blood, instead of punishing 
the rest of the Canaanites, as Sodom and Go- 
morrah had been punished, by direct divine 
interposition ? A single example may help to 
explain this. When Joshua called upon the 
captains of the men of war to plant their feet 
upon the necks of the prostrate kings of Canaan 
(Josh. x. 24), the act seems to our Christian 
apprehension like one of wanton insult to a 
prostrate foe ; but to one at all able to enter 
into the spirit of the times it will be seen in its 
true light, as a necessary means of raising the 
courage of the chosen people, and teaching them 
not to tremble before the might of the idola- 
trous heathen whom they were to supplant. 
And, in general, the lesson of God's anger against 
Canaanitish sin could in no other way have been 
so impressed upon the Israelites as by making 
them the actual executioners of His wrath. 
With the strong tendency to heathen abomina- 
tions that they constantly displayed, it would 
seem that, but for the personal impression thus 
produced, there would have been no restraining 
them at all. We do not find that the overthrow 
of Sodom and Gomorrah ever had any marked 
moral effect upon their neighbors. 

These thoughts lead to the more sweeping 
charge that, from Abraham down through all 
their history, the Israelites are represented in 



52 INTRODUCTION, 

the Bible as the especial favorites of the Al- 
mighty, and whoever interferes with them, no 
matter if he is right and they are wrong, is yet 
doomed to feel the vengeance of the Omnipo- 
tent. It is said that this is just what is found in 
the legends of every ancient people, and gives 
good ground for looking upon the Scripture 
records as largely the human story of a nation 
who imagined themselves the especial favorites 
of heaven. This is simply a question of fact. 
Were these tribes really in such a peculiar rela- 
tion to God that they should have been treated 
differently from other people ? There can be 
but one answer to this, if the general course of 
history as set forth in the Scriptures is received 
at all. Men had increased in wickedness as fast 
as in numbers. The race had been wiped from 
the face of the earth by the flood, and a fresh 
population developed from the only righteous 
family. Even this was ineffectual; nor was 
the confusion of tongues more successful. Man 
tended too rapidly to moral degeneracy to be 
restrained by any universal discipline. Then a 
particular individual was selected to become, 
with his descendants, the depositary of divine 
truth. He was trained as a childless wanderer 
for long years, and his son also in the same way. 
Not until the third generation was any multi- 
plication allowed ; and then, when the family 



INTRODUCTION. 53 

was growing to be a nation, it was brought 
into bondage, and schooled for generations, first 
under the rigors of a servile condition, then in 
the free air of the desert, and was placed under 
a law of minute detail and of severe penalty. 
It is plain, therefore, that in God's dealings 
with these patriarchs and their descendants He 
would rightly have had regard, even more than 
to them individually, to the part they were 
called to play in the furtherance of His pur- 
poses, and in the preparation for that great fact 
in the world's history, the coming of the Re- 
deemer. Jacob, e. g., was promised the birth- 
right, and would in any event have received it. 
He actually obtained it by fraud, and for this 
was punished by long years of exile and many 
sorrows ; but he was allowed to retain the birth- 
right, because this was a step in the world's 
progress to Christ. His descendants were again 
and again told that God's favor to them was not 
for their own sake, for they were a " stiff-necked 
and rebellious people," but for the sake of God's 
great name. Their sins are continually recorded, 
as well as their punishments. All this is un- 
known in the legends of other ancient people ; 
there is nothing in ancient history like it. If 
these were human records, they would be like 
others. Because they are not, and because as a 
matter of fact the Israelites had been made the 



54 INTRODUCTION. 

peculiar people of God to facilitate His purposes 
of love in the redemption of mankind, therefore 
this partiality for them must be attributed not 
to the imagination of the human writers, but to 
the divine revelation itself. 

In regard to the so-called faulty morality of 
the Old Testament, we select the most difficult 
case to serve as an example. In the great war 
between Israel and their oppressor, although 
Jabin's army had been routed, there could be no 
security against a recurrence of the oppression as 
long as his general, Sisera, lived. The Kenites 
occupied a neutral position between the two par- 
ties, on friendly terms with both, yet always, on 
the whole, attached to Israel. Under these cir- 
cumstances the fugitive Sisera sought refuge in 
the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, 
and was received with every demonstration of 
cordiality and friendship. But when the tired 
warrior had fallen asleep in fancied security, 
she slew him and showed his dead body exult- 
ingly to the pursuing Israelites. History has 
instances enough of similar treachery ; but the 
peculiarity of this is that the deed is especially 
commended in the song of the inspired prophet- 
ess, Deborah. She not merely rejoices in the 
result, but declares Jael as " blessed above wo- 
men " for having done the deed. It is plain 
that the act of Jael was considered by her con- 



INTRODUCTION. 55 

temporaries as most praiseworthy. They had 
not yet risen to a moral condition in which they 
could be shocked at its treachery ; they saw in 
it only the brave deed of a woman who had 
faith enough in the God of Israel to dare the 
wrath of the oppressors, and by one act to de- 
stroy the nerve and strength of Israel's enemy. 
The commendation of Deborah, in the midst of 
this state of moral childhood, may be regarded, 
in itself, either as a mistaken human commenda- 
tion of an essentially wrong act, or as a divine 
commendation of a zeal for God and a trust in 
Him, although this showed itself forth according 
to the light of the times. It is so difficult to 
transport ourselves in thought into times far 
different from our own that the former has 
often seemed the easier alternative ; yet there 
can be no question of the general principle that 
God does commend men, in our time and in all 
times, for zealous and brave activity in His ser- 
vice according to the best light and knowledge 
they can command, even when it afterwards 
proves that their views were mistaken. This, 
of course, does not justify wrong deeds when 
those who do them might know better ; but in 
Jael's case, and in others of that time, the op- 
portunity for such better knowledge was want- 
ing. They acted according to their light, even 
as we now, with a clear conscience and with the 



56 INTRODUCTION. 

approbation of our fellow-men, do many things 
which in a higher stage of existence may be 
seen to have been wrong. Yet we reasonably 
expect our heavenly Father to judge such acts 
in view of our imperfect knowledge and of the 
spirit which animated them. It was in the 
same way that the act of Jael was commended. 
She knew no better, and served God with cour- 
age and zeal according to the light she had. 1 
May we never do worse. 

The unrighteous acts of several of the judges 
bring out another important fact. Samson loved 
strange women ; Ehud treacherously assassinated 
Eglon ; and many like deeds were done by men 
expressly " raised up by the Lord " for the deliv- 

1 Great stress is sometimes laid upon the fact that Jael 
murdered Sisera after feeding him, thus violating the uni- 
versal oriental law of hospitality. Hence it is argued that 
she must have known of the immorality of her act. The an- 
swer is obvious, that, so far as this point is concerned, she 
could not have known of it, for there was no immorality about 
it. This law of protection to the guest is a mere custom of 
necessity in a state of society which has no other bond of co- 
herence. It has no moral character about it ; but is merely 
intended to furnish the possibility of some protection to life. 
He who violates it, attacks the only safeguard for life in the 
community and therefore exposes himself to the vengeance of 
the whole community, not because his act is considered im- 
moral, but because it is looked upon as dangerous. Jael 
showed her zeal in braving even this danger of making her- 
self an outlaw whose life would be at the mercy of every one 
she met. 



INTRODUCTION. 57 

erance of Israel, and at times when " the Spirit 
of the Lord " had especially come upon them. 
How could these things be ? In a less conspic- 
uous way, the same thing happens now. Men 
are providentially raised up, and go forth, moved 
by God's Spirit, to do good in their day and 
generation. Nevertheless, in their human weak- 
ness and infirmity of judgment, they often do 
many foolish and hurtful things. Shall it be 
said that the Lord prompted them to do these 
things ? By no means. He prompted them to 
do good, but left the manner of the doing to 
the exercise of their own faculties. So God 
prompted the judges to deliver Israel, but left 
the manner of it to themselves ; and they, in the 
moral darkness in which they were, took coun- 
sel perhaps of their passions, or at least of their 
prejudices and misconceptions of the right. 
These acts themselves were often severely pun- 
ished. Samson's guilty love led to his imprison- 
ment and death, and Jephthah's rash vow turned 
into bitter mourning the very hour of his vic- 
tory. But there is no error in the statement 
that they were " raised up by the Lord," or that 
they acted under the impulse of His Spirit. 
The mistake is in supposing that this impulse 
guided them to acts which were really deter- 
mined by their own erring judgment. 

The more general question recurs : Why should 



58 INTRODUCTION. 

men have been kept so long under the tutelage 
of an imperfect system, and have been taught 
such incomplete morality, that they could do 
these abominable things, either with a clear con- 
science, or at least without adequate sense of 
their wrong? Why should not a higher stand- 
ard have been set before them so clearly that 
they ' must have recognized polygamy and slav- 
ery, murder, revenge, and deceit, as in direct 
opposition to God's holy will? Because they 
were not able to receive or understand a higher 
standard. The slowness of development of the 
human faculties in the race, as in the individual, 
is something in proportion to their value. Phys- 
ical prowess and skill is earlier and more easily 
acquired than intellectual, and intellectual than 
moral. Character is the hardest and the slow- 
est thing in its formation. There were always 
sufficient indications of God's will in His reve- 
lation, if men had been able to see them. The 
same dispensation which tolerated polygamy re- 
corded that " at first God made them male and 
female " ; the same law which required an eye 
for an eye also commanded, "Thou shalt not 
avenge." (Lev. xix. 18.) Under the education 
of this law a fair-minded man could see, when it 
was pointed out to him, that its two great com- 
mandments, embracing all others, were a su- 
preme love to God, and an equal love to one's 



INTRODUCTION. 59 

neighbor with himself. This is the sum of all 
morality, and this is the acknowledged sum of 
the teaching of the old dispensation ; but to the 
recognition of this mankind must be trained, 
like children, little by little, and imperfect com- 
mands must be given until they were able to 
rise to better. Men were very wicked, and 
" the law was added because of transgressions, 
until the promised Seed should come " and bring 
out the higher morality and spirituality which 
all along lay hidden under its temporary educa- 
tional provisions. In all this there is nothing 
to show that this imperfect law was the out- 
growth of the ideas of its human writers ; if it 
had been, it would not have been possible to 
trace a higher law beneath it, and it would not 
have been " our schoolmaster to bring us to 
Christ. ,, Since it is marked by these character- 
istics, there is but one tenable conclusion : It 
was divinely given to prepare men of dull spirit- 
ual apprehension for a higher and better law 
ready to be revealed in its time. 

There are no other classes of alleged error in 
the Scriptures requiring especial notice. The 
treatment of the subject is necessarily incom- 
plete ; because the force of an inductive argu- 
ment depends upon an examination of all the 
facts, and this is impossible here. But the aim 
has been throughout to take the most difficult 



60 INTRODUCTION . 

facts; and if these do not sustain the theory 
that the Bible is untrustworthy in certain direc- 
tions, because of the erroneous views of its 
human writers, there are no others which can 
do so. It has been attempted to show that all 
these so-called errors are at least consistent 
with the hypothesis that they proceed from the 
Divine Source of the Scriptures, and in many 
cases are so inextricably involved with what must 
belong to that Source that no other hypothesis 
is tenable. The consideration of the subject 
would be incomplete, however, without mention 
of the way in which the Scriptures themselves 
treat the question. 

Our Lord continually refers to them as abso- 
lutely reliable and true. He speaks of various 
details in them as of " Scriptures which cannot 
be broken." He quotes even incidental pas- 
sages as conclusive in argument. As already 
said, they are the only authority to which He de- 
fers, and yet He defers to them in their mi- 
nutest points ; while at the same time He un- 
folds in them a previously unknown richness 
and depth of spiritual truth. There are points 
where He has occasion to change their teaching, 
as, e. g., in regard to the law of divorce ; but 
even there He shows that He only restores the 
original will of His Father, and He proves what 
that will was by the same Scriptures. He rec- 



INTRODUCTION. 61 

ognizes that God had suffered that will to be in 
abeyance for a time, because of the hardness of 
men's hearts ; but He treats the law, thus suffered 
to be imperfect, as not from man, but from God. 
He shows, indeed, that much of the older Scrip- 
tures came to its intended result in Himself and 
His teaching, and had no farther force ; but this 
fulfillment, so far from proving them human, 
shows their divine character all the more 
clearly, in that, from the hoar ages of antiquity, 
they had looked forward to and prepared for 
His coming. 

His apostles, beyond all question, regarded 
the Scriptures in the same way. No particular 
passage, admitting of any doubtful interpreta- 
tion, need be referred to. The view taken 
throughout the Acts and the Epistles is plain 
beyond any possibility of doubt. The Scrip- 
tures are everywhere appealed to as of authority 
in small matters, as well as in great. Their his- 
tories are regarded as authentic in every partic- 
ular ; their precepts are made the foundation of 
Christian teaching ; their prophecies are treated 
as evidence of Christian truth ; and their moral 
teaching is abundantly urged on Christian dis- 
ciples. We suppose that no one, whatever may 
be his own view, can fail to recognize, if he look 
fairly at the question, that the New Testament 
writers believed the Scriptures to be the word of 



62 INTRODUCTION. 

God, rather than simply to contain it. This 
belief we have tried to show was justified by the 
facts ; and if so, certain important consequences 
follow. 

First, in regard to the theory of inspiration. 
If the Bible is thoroughly true and reliable 
(not taking into account mere copyists' errors), 
then, making allowance only for such imperfect 
statements of the truth or such imperfect com- 
mands as were required by the condition of the 
men to whom it was given, we have before us 
this prodigy: that during the lapse of many 
centuries a number of writers, of different per- 
sonal character and of every variety of culture 
and position, writing with such freedom that 
their idiosyncrasies are plainly to be seen, and 
unhesitatingly touching upon every subject that 
came in their way — historical, ethnological, 
archaeological, scientific, and moral — have been 
preserved from error. This result could not 
have had place in writings of human origin. Is 
there any other logical conclusion from this, 
than that, whatever else be or be not the func- 
tion of inspiration, its scope included the pres- 
ervation of the Bible from error, and the giving 
to man of a book on which he may rely abso- 
lutely as the word of God ? 

Finally, in regard to exegesis. The interpre- 
tation of Scripture is an easy matter, if the 
interpreter may refer everything that seems 



INTRODUCTION. 63 

troublesome to the mistake of the human writer, 
treating it as of no consequence because he 
thinks it does not interfere with the essential 
office of God's word as the teacher of religious 
duty. If, however, the interpreter must accept 
all Scripture as given by inspiration of God, 
allowing only for the coloring of the various 
human writers and for unavoidable error in the 
transmission of their writings, he has a different 
task before him. He must interpret not only 
in view of the opinions of the individual writ- 
ers, but also according to the infinite knowledge 
and truth which lay behind them, and which 
exercised over them an indescribable but potent 
influence. And he must do this not by subtle- 
ties and technicalities, but by open and manly 
treatment of the text before him. We do not 
deny that this requires thought and study, and 
a familiarity with the conditions under which 
revelation in its various parts was given, and 
the circumstances, character, and spiritual ap- 
prehensions of the people to whom it was given. 
But the study of the Scriptures under these con- 
ditions will more than repay the labor required, 
and will, we believe, lead to the ever firmer and 
firmer conviction that they are in very truth 

THE WORD OF GOD. 

The following treatise upon the principles of 
Interpretation is based upon the position here 
maintained. 



PART I. 

THE PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY. 

On taking into our hands the English Bible 
we find it bound up in one volume labeled, 
"The Holy Bible," and we know that it has 
always been regarded with peculiar reverence as 
set apart and distinguished from all other books. 
On opening its covers it professes on its title- 
page to be a translation, and this fact at once 
refers us to its original languages as necessary 
for the full understanding of its contents. On 
looking within, it is seen to have a diversity, as 
being composed of two main divisions, the Old 
and the New Testaments ; and on further exam- 
ination, each of these is seen to be made up of a 
number of separate books written by different 
persons, at widely different times, and with dif- 
ferent immediate purposes. These are the fun- 
damental facts underlying any principles of in- 
terpretation. 



PBELIMINABY. 65 

Let us look first at its diversity. It contains 
history. About one third of the Old Testament 
is made up of historical narrative, most of it 
anonymously written, but assigned on various 
grounds to a succession of authors extending 
over a space of more than a thousand years, 
while considerable portions of the prophetical 
books are also occupied with historical matter. 
This history is both oriental and extremely 
primitive in style, dwelling with great minute- 
ness upon certain incidents and passing over in 
silence many connected events. The history 
throughout is regarded from the standpoint of 
the people to which it belonged, with only slight 
notice of the other nations among which they 
lived. This history also includes the whole sys- 
tem of legislation, civil and ecclesiastical, of the 
ancient people of Israel. Of the New Testa- 
ment more than one half (including the reports 
of the discourses of our Lord) is historical. Of 
course, the ordinary canons of historical criti- 
cism must be borne in view in the interpretation 
of these portions of both Testaments, however 
they may be modified by the peculiar character 
of the books. The questions of authorship and 
of date, so far as these can be ascertained, are 
also important factors in interpretation. The 
histories of the Old Testament have more the 
character of chronicles, are duplicated only to a 



66 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

small extent, and are generally of the nature of 
compilations, in the case of the book of Genesis 
at least, from documents of extreme antiquity ; 
the histories of the New Testament, on the other 
hand, have more the character of memoirs, writ- 
ten either by eyewitnesses or by those who de- 
rived their information immediately from eyewit- 
nesses ; the Synoptical Gospels are to a large 
extent parallel narratives, and while these books 
are also anonymous, their authorship is far more 
easily determined with certainty. 

Outside of the histories the difference between 
these two parts of the Bible is much greater. 
All the rest of the New Testament, except the 
Apocalypse, is made up of letters written by 
Apostles or Apostolic men to churches or to 
scattered believers in various parts of the world 
and on various occasions. These contain doctri- 
nal statements and arguments as well as practi- 
cal exhortations, with a multitude of individual 
and historical allusions. A large part of them 
were written by Paul, and his personal life and 
character becomes an important element in their 
interpretation. Some of them are of an earlier 
date than any of the Gospels. The closing book 
is of an apocalyptic character, assimilated some- 
what to the books of Daniel and Ezekiel, and 
from its nature is in many parts extremely dif- 
ficult to interpret. On the other hand, the rest 



PRELIMINARY. 67 

of the Old Testament falls into two main divi- 
sions of not very unequal size, the "poetical 
books " and the " prophecies," the former oc- 
cupying about two fifths and the latter the re- 
mainder of that part of the Old Testament not 
already classed as historical. The poetical books 
are of varied character. The book of Job con- 
tains a short narrative of the remarkable expe- 
rience of that patriarch, with a prolonged dis- 
cussion of the Divine government of the world ; 
the book of Psalms, itself by various authors 
and composed at various times, contains the 
sacred songs and prayers of the ancient church 
and of some of its most prominent members; 
Ecclesiastes, unlike the others, largely in prose, 
is a philosophical discussion of " the enigma of 
life ; " while the Canticles is a short poetical book 
of a character peculiarly its own. The remain- 
ing books of the Bible contain the waitings of a 
long series of prophets, in several instances con- 
temporary with one another, but, from first to 
last, extending over a space of four centuries. 
These books, with some historical portions, are 
chiefly didactic, but have also, scattered through 
them, visions and, in some instances, distinct 
verbal predictions of future events, some near, 
some looking on to the end of time, but mainly 
occupied with that which forms the subject of 
the New Testament, the new covenant of salva- 
tion in our Lord Jesus Christ. 



68 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

From this brief summary it may be seen to 
how great a diversity of subject, of time, and of 
writers the principles of Scripture Hermeneutics 
must apply. 

There is also important variety in the lan- 
guages in which these books were written. The 
New Testament is in Greek throughout, but in 
Greek of a late type and modified by an Ara- 
maic speaking people ; it has also been influenced 
by the Greek translation of the Old Testament 
in common use, known as the Septuagint, which 
is marked by a peculiar Hellenistic structure. 
It has, therefore, its dialectic peculiarities, and 
these are more marked with some of its writers 
than with others. In addition, the language is 
necessarily modified by the nature of the sub- 
ject on which it is employed, since no heathen 
language could possibly be a sufficient vehicle 
for the communication of the ideas which Chris- 
tianity first brought into the world. Its inter- 
pretation thus requires not only an accurate 
knowledge of Greek, but also of its Hellenistic 
modifications, a familiarity with the facts and 
the doctrines therein treated, together with the 
Jewish traditions, customs, and beliefs which the 
language has been used to express. 

The great bulk of the Old Testament is in 
Hebrew, with a few important passages in Chal- 
dee. The Hebrew fortunately remained remark- 



PRELIMINARY. 69 

ably fixed during the thousand years in the 
course of which these books were written, but, 
nevertheless, it underwent some modification. 
The fact, however, that there is no other litera- 
ture in pure Hebrew, and that it had practi- 
cally become a dead language before the Chris- 
tian era, leads to some difficulties of interpreta- 
tion which can only partially be removed by the 
study of the cognate languages and by famil- 
iarity with the history, usages, and habits of 
thought of other oriental nations. 

A further obvious necessity to the exact in- 
terpretation of the Scriptures is the settlement 
of their text. The books of Scripture were 
transmitted to a comparatively recent date in 
manuscript, and these manuscripts have become 
more or less vitiated by the often repeated work 
of the copyists. New Testament textual criti- 
cism is an art requiring especial study, but forms 
the subject of so many separate treatises that it 
need scarcely be considered here, although it 
will be spoken of briefly in a later chapter. 
Happily, its principles have become so well set- 
tled that the text may be considered as generally 
established, and there remain comparatively few 
passages of any kind, and still fewer of impor- 
tance, in which the reading is still in doubt. 

The same amount of material does not exist, 
nor has the same amount of care been as yet ex 



70 PBEPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

pended upon the text of the Old Testament. 
There are no existing manuscripts of anything 
like the same relative antiquity ; the versions 
into other languages have neither been made as 
near to the date of the original writing, nor, 
for the most part, with even an approach to the 
same scrupulous fidelity. To the last remark 
the Samaritan text and the Samaritan version 
may be considered as to some extent exceptions ; 
but these cover only the Pentateuch. Still 
further, we do not have, as in the case of the 
New Testament, ample quotations of a date not 
very far removed from that of the books them- 
selves. On the other hand, it is well known 
that in the later centuries of their history the 
Jews guarded the text of their sacred books with 
a superstitious reverence, counting the words, 
and religiously preserving even errors which 
had once been introduced in the form or size of 
the letters. Nevertheless, on comparing parallel 
passages, it becomes certain that errors, espe- 
cially in the statement of numbers, do exist in 
the present text, and it is a part of the office of 
the interpreter to determine where, and to what 
extent, conjectural emendation is admissible. 
What there is of an apparatus criticus for his 
aid will be spoken of hereafter. 

With all these elements of variety, there still 
exists a marked and substantial unity in the 



PRELIMINARY. 71 

whole volume of Scripture. It is all God's 
word, and an attempt has been made in the In- 
troduction to show in what sense that expression 
is to be understood. There are other books es- 
teemed sacred among people of other religions, 
which, in some cases, as in that of the Vedas, 
have been written at long intervals of time, and 
in these books may be found a certain unity 
as a necessary result of their national origin 
and their common religious character ; but they 
neither have orderly development, nor is there 
in them any trace of a progressive revelation. 
The unity of the Bible is very much more than 
this. It is a unity of plan and purpose in which 
the end has been seen from the beginning, and 
all its parts have been adjusted with reference 
to that end. It is a book divinely given to en- 
able man so to use this present life as to fit 
him for the life which is to come, and this pur- 
pose must always be kept in view as the under- 
lying thought of the whole in every attempt at 
its interpretation. This purpose, moreover, has 
been accomplished by the wonderful plan of sal- 
vation through a personal Redeemer, who thus 
becomes the very centre and object of every 
part. Without the recognition of these facts 
many parts of the Bible may seem obsolete or 
useless ; with this clue as a guide, every part is 
brought into its true harmony and importance. 



72 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

This fundamental unity at once distinguishes 
the Bible from all other books, and becomes the 
leading principle of its interpretation. In pass- 
ing from the Law to the Gospel, there is a total 
change in the whole outward religious system ; 
yet there is ample proof that both were parts of 
one consistent plan, and that the former was de- 
signed from the beginning as preparatory for 
the latter, — that the Law was our schoolmaster 
to bring us to Christ. 



CHAPTER II. 

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

There are necessarily two main parts in any 
treatise upon the interpretation of the Bible ; 
the first must deal with the qualifications re- 
quired in the interpreter ; the second, with the 
actual method in the practice of interpretation. 

Among the many essential qualifications of 
the interpreter we place first that of a familiar- 
ity with the whole contents of Scripture, and a 
good general knowledge of its scope and design. 
This is placed first, not because in an accurate 
and thorough interpretation it can suffice alone, 
but because it is of itself of more avail than any 
other single qualification, and because it is neces- 
sary to possess this first in order that other qual- 
ifications may have their full value. 

With no knowledge of the original languages, 
with no familiarity with history, or acquaintance 
with either geography or archaeology beyond 
that furnished by the Scriptures themselves, 
a person, while he cannot possibly become a 
thorough exegete, may yet interpret fairly and 
truthfully by far the greater part of the sacred 



74 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

record. The Bible has been so often and so well 
translated, and the English version especially is 
one of such exceptional excellence, that one can- 
not fail to gather from it much more than the 
general scope of the inspired word. There are 
passages, it is true, sometimes of importance, in 
which the text has been changed by later critical 
research ; no scholar would now think of main- 
taining the genuineness of the testimony of the 
three heavenly witnesses in 1 John v. 7, and 
few would contend that the doxology of the 
Lord's Prayer was a part of the original record. 
So, also, there are some other passages in which 
the translation is grievously at fault, as in the 
sad marring of the glorious Messianic prophecy 
of Isa. ix. There is, too, beyond all this, very 
frequently a serious loss in the nicer shades of 
expression almost inseparable from a translation ; 
and to these nicer shades the well furnished in- 
terpreter must have constant regard. But over 
and above all this, there is more light to be 
thrown upon the interpretation of Scripture from 
a general knowledge of Scripture itself than 
from any other single source. 

When John the Baptist cried " Behold the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world " (John i. 29), his meaning is to be sought 
not in any knowledge of the Greek words, for 
they are perfectly well represented by the Eng- 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 75 

lish ; nor yet in any especial idiom, for the sen- 
tence is entirely simple and easy of construc- 
tion ; but in the recollection that John was of 
the priestly family of the old dispensation, and 
spoke to men familiar with the use of the lamb 
under that dispensation in connection with the 
forgiveness of sins. All that is needed for the 
interpretation of this text is a familiarity with 
the circumstances of the speaker and with the 
sacrificial system of the dispensation of which he 
formed a part. He must have been understood 
by his hearers to point to Jesus as a propitiation 
for the sin of the world, and beyond this, in the 
fuller light of the New Testament revelation, he 
must be understood by us to have declared our 
Lord to be the antitype of whom the sacrificial 
lambs of old were the types and shadows. So if 
we turn to the primeval promise to fallen man 
given in the curse upon the serpent, " I will put 
enmity between thee and the woman, and be- 
tween thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy 
head, and thou shalt bruise his heel " (Gen. iii. 
15), the explanation must be sought in the story 
of the Bible itself, to which a knowledge of the 
original language can bring little additional light. 
It is plain from the early story of Genesis that 
this was looked upon as a promise that a man 
should be born, who would restore to the race the 
blessings lost by the fall, and it is evident from 



76 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

the text itself that this was to be accomplished 
by a struggle in which some injury should be in- 
flicted upon man, while the author of evil should 
be utterly crushed. This promise appears to 
have been the hope and stay of the human race 
during the ages (cf. Gen. iv. 1 ; v. 29) ; and 
thus, when we read later of a promise given to 
Abram (Gen. xii. 3, etc.) and to his descendants, 
that in his seed all the families of the earth 
should be blessed, it would seem that it must 
have been recognized by him and by them as the 
same primeval promise. As the centuries rolled 
away we know that an expectation, correspond- 
ing to this promise, became general and wide- 
spread, even among heathen nations ; but it is 
among the people who were the chosen deposita- 
ries of revelation that we must look for the full- 
est explanation of its meaning. There we find 
the promise, after being successively restricted 
to the line of Isaac and of Jacob, and to the 
house of Judah, confined to the family of David, 
and its meaning more and more sharply defined 
by the various teachers in the long line of the 
prophets. The Messianic hope, always the rai- 
son d'etre of Israel's existence, became the cen- 
tral thought of all its people. Finally, in the 
New Testament we have the record of the vic- 
tory won over " him that hath the power of 
death," and the teaching that "there is none 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 77 

other name under heaven given among men 
whereby we must be saved." 

It often happens that even a correction of the 
text may be rightly made on the basis of the 
English version alone. When, e. g., it is said in 
2 Sam. viii. 4 that David took from the king of 
Zobah 700 horsemen, and in the otherwise pre- 
cisely parallel passage, 1 Chr. xviii. 4, that he 
took 7,000, it is easy to see that one of the num- 
bers has been changed by the copyist. The 
same thing is true in several other places. The 
" men of 700 chariots of the Syrians and 40,000 
horsemen " of 2 Sam. x. 18, becomes the " 7,000 
which fought in chariots and 40,000 footmen " 
of 1 Chr. xix. 18. Compare also 2 Sam. xxiii. 
8 with 1 Chr. xi. 11 ; 1 Ki. ix. 23 with 2 Chr. 
viii. 10 ; 1 Ki. ix. 28 with 2 Chr. viii. 18. In 
all these cases, except in the knowledge of the 
fact that numbers were anciently expressed by 
letters and that these were changed in decimal 
value by dots placed over them, the original 
gives us no help beyond the English translation. 
In other cases of a divergence of numbers, as in 
the duplicate census of the captives returning 
from exile, given in Ezra ii. and in Neh. vii., the 
English only enables us to see that there must 
be errors ; a careful knowledge of the original is 
required for their conjectural correction. 

On the other hand, serious difficulties on 



78 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

which a knowledge of the original languages can 
throw no light are either much reduced or even 
entirely cleared away by information derived 
from the Scripture narrative itself. Thus in 
Mark ii. 26 our Lord speaks of Abiathar as the 
high priest at the time of David's eating the 
shew-bread ; but on turning to the history in 1 
Sam. xxi. we find that Ahimelech was then the 
high priest, and from 1 Sam. xxii. 20, xxiii. 6, 
xxx. 7 that Abiathar was his son. Here is ap- 
parently an error; but if we look at 2 Sam. viii. 
17, 1 Chr. xxiv. 3, 6, 31, we find, on the other 
hand, that Ahimelech is described as the son of 
Abiathar. The natural inference, therefore, and 
one which removes the difficulty, is that both 
names were borne alike by father and son. The 
genealogy of our Lord in Matt, i., with its curi- 
ous threefold division into parts of fourteen gen- 
erations each, might be taken in Greek as well 
as in English for a full record of all the links 
in the ancestry of Joseph, were it not that many 
intermediate generations are supplied in the Old 
Testament history, and we thus come to see 
that the genealogy in Matthew is merely a sum- 
mary of the prominent links in the line, so evi- 
dently arranged as a help to the memory that 
the name of David is actually repeated, after 
the Jewish fashion, to make out the successive 
numbers of fourteen each. God's hardening of 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 79 

Pharaoh's heart, spoken of in Ex. iv. 21 and 
frequently elsewhere, and His raising up of 
Pharaoh for the purpose of showing in him His 
power (Ex. ix. 16, quoted in Rom. ix. 17) are 
not lessened in difficulty by an examination of 
the words in the original, but are to be explained 
by the general analogy of Scripture, and in fact 
present no difficulty when seen in the light of 
the Bible history. 

But even more than this may be said. In- 
stances are not wanting in which an excessive 
regard for supposed niceties of language has 
led commentators into erroneous interpretations 
from which they might have been saved by giv- 
ing more weight to the context. The phrase 
" saints of the most High " in Dan. vii. 27 
could never have been interpreted (as it is by 
Tregelles and others) of the " saints of the most 
High places " (i. e., the Jews) if an excessive 
linguistic literalism had not overridden the 
weightier considerations to be drawn from the 
general scope of the prophecy. In the same 
way the expression " the Israel of God " in Gal. 
vi. 16 can only be understood of the Jews (as is 
done by so eminent a commentator as Ellicott) 
by such an excessive attention to the niceties of 
the Greek as allows us to suppose a self-stultifi- 
cation of the Apostle and an utter contradiction 
of his whole argument at the very point of its 



80 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

climax. Several modern exegetes have main- 
tained that the use of the pluperfect in Gen. xii. 
1, " the Lord had said unto Abram," is an un- 
fair translation, because, it is alleged, the form 
of the Hebrew verb here used does not admit of 
this sense, and it has even been called a disin- 
genuous attempt to conform the narrative to the 
assertion of Stephen in Acts vii. 2 ; but however 
this may be in regard to the use of the Hebrew 
form (which is at least open to a difference of 
opinion) 2 the fact of a previous Divine call to 
Abram, in accordance with Stephen's statement, 
is made certain from the continuation of the 
narrative in Gen. xv. 7 : ** I am the Lord that 
brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give 
thee this land to inherit it." He who would 
become an exegete on merely linguistic grounds, 
without regard to the general scope of Scripture, 
is like a man who would comprehend some beau- 
tifully adjusted machine by the study of each 
particular wheel and screw without considering 
the purpose of the whole, or rather like one who 
would seek to understand a living organism from 
the microscopic examination of each muscle and 
tissue without taking into account the functions 
of life and the adaptation of part to part and of 
each member to the whole. 

The general knowledge of Scripture here 

1 Vide Introduction, p. 33, note. 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 81 

spoken of can only be attained as the result of 
study and reflection. One important means to 
ifc is the rapid reading of a whole book of Scrip- 
ture, if possible at one sitting, in order to gain 
a view of its salient points and its purpose. It 
should be done in a paragraph Bible where the 
connection of thought is not broken in upon by 
the division into chapters and verses. This 
must be often repeated, for the various books 
are so connected as parts of one whole that the 
more perfect knowledge of one helps to the bet- 
ter understanding of another. This method of 
obtaining a general view of each book needs to 
be supplemented and interchanged with a more 
careful study of its important parts. Especially 
is it important to compare one book with an- 
other and observe the method in which the same 
matter is treated in each. A study of subjects 
or of historic characters treated in one book 
should be filled out with an examination of the 
way in which the same subject or person is 
spoken of elsewhere. It is very instructive, e. g., 
to read in the Old Testament the whole history 
of Abraham or David rapidly, so as to impress 
upon the mind the prominent features of their 
story, and then to observe how they are spoken 
of in the Gospels, the epistles of Paul, and the 
epistle of James. Although the matter is at- 
tended with some peculiar difficulties which can 



82 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

only gradually be removed, yet a knowledge of 
the connection of the two Testaments will be 
greatly increased by a careful examination of 
every quotation in the New and of the context 
in which it occurs in the Old. Another useful 
exercise, helping to this general knowledge of 
Scripture is the tracing out the incidental allu- 
sions in certain of the books to the history of the 
time in which others were written. Thus the con- 
nection of many of the psalms with the period in 
which they were composed, the allusions in the 
epistles of Paul to the circumstances narrated in 
the Acts, and the references in the prophets to 
the events and the condition of the people in 
the age in which they lived, all help to that gen- 
eral knowledge of the Scriptures of which we 
speak. These particulars are mentioned only as 
examples to illustrate the sort of study required. 
Other methods will readily suggest themselves 
to any one who enters earnestly upon the work. 
Of great value as an aid in this matter are the 
introductions to the several books given in the 
better commentaries, and the articles upon the 
books and their authors in the various Diction- 
aries of the Bible, and " Introductions " to the 
Old and the New Testaments. These, however, 
like all other helps to interpretation, are always 
to be considered as secondary, and the informa- 
tion obtained from them must be verified by the 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCEIPTUEES. 83 

student's own proper labor. They are useful 
guides, but he must travel over the road himself. 

In one way or another a fair general know- 
ledge of the Bible as a whole must be acquired 
by every one who seeks to become a satisfactory 
interpreter of its particular parts. Of course 
this knowledge may be more and more increased 
to the end of life, and it is not necessary that 
one should have it in perfection at the outset of 
his work; but it is necessary that this know- 
ledge should have been cultivated in full propor- 
tion to every other department. 

Closely connected with this general knowledge 
of the whole Bible is a still more intimate ac-^ 
quaintance with the particular book which is to 
be the immediate subject of interpretation. 
However wide a scope may be given to inspira- 
tion, the individuality of each of the Scripture 
writers is nevertheless impressed, and often 
strongly impressed, upon his writing. It is, 
therefore, important to know him as thoroughly 
as possible in his own personality, in his mental 
constitution and habits, in his life experiences, 
and in his position in respect to those for whom 
he immediately wrote. To this end his life up 
to the time of his writing, his style and method 
of expression, and his immediate object in writ- 
ing should be carefully studied. A comparison 
of the epistles of Paul with one another, written 



84 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

as they were at different periods of a growing 
life, or of the Psalms of David, written under 
widely different circumstances, will be found 
suggestive in this respect. When the author 
cannot be known with certainty, or when the 
generally received authorship has been ques- 
tioned, the time and circumstances under which 
the book was written can yet generally be ascer- 
tained with sufficient definiteness to enable us to 
look out from the writer's standpoint, and thus 
enter into the meaning of his teaching. Thus 
the broad difference of tone between Deuteron- 
omy and the middle books of the Pentateuch is 
seen to be the natural result of the change in 
position and purpose from that of a legislator 
providing a minute system of ceremonial obser- 
vances for a semicivilized people, to that of a 
patriarch at the close of life, leaving his parting 
exhortations to that people as they were about to 
enter, without him, upon the inheritance long 
promised to their fathers. So also the modifica- 
tion in some of the details of the legislation is 
just that which was required when the people 
were passing from the compact arrangement of 
their camp in the wilderness to their dispersion in 
their settled homes (cf. especially, Deut. xii. 15, 
with Lev. xvii. 3-5), and such modification is in 
itself both a strong evidence that the books were 
written under the circumstances to which they 



KNOWLEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 85 

are attributed, and also that such a change of 
the law must have been promulgated by the 
same authority as its original enactment, since 
no lesser authority could have ventured upon 
such change. 

Along with this knowledge of the personality 
of the writer there is needed also a knowledge 
of the people whom he immediately addressed in 
their then existing circumstances. It is plain 
enough, e. g. 9 that the cosmogony of Genesis 
and the legislation of Mt. Sinai are largely af- 
fected by the condition of the people to whom 
they were given ; it would have been idle at that 
time to have written the one as if for a modern 
scientific audience, or to frame the other as for 
a people trained under the light and morality of 
the Gospel. The fourth Evangelist could hardly 
have written as he has at the time when the 
work of the first was completed, and the epistle 
of James could not have been wisely addressed 
to the Galatians as Paul knew them. The 
strong denunciations of the prophets find their 
justification in the condition of the people to 
whom they spoke ; Daniel's address to Nebu- 
chadnezzar is very different from that to Bel- 
shazzar, in consequence of the different character 
of the two monarchs ; it is evident that Ezekiel, 
after prophesying to those who had been carried 
captive along with himself and thus purified by 



86 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

some years of affliction, had men of much lower 
moral condition to deal with when their num- 
bers were increased by the addition of those 
who had been left behind in Jerusalem, and had 
there grown steadily more corrupt. It is im- 
possible to understand our Lord's addresses to 
the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians 
without some knowledge of these various parties, 
and his reasoning with the Sadducees concerning 
the resurrection will seem inconclusive unless 
we remember that they denied not only the res- 
urrection, but the existence altogether of angel 
or spirit (see Acts xxiii. 8). 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE GEOGRAPHY AND THE PHYSICAL GEOG- 
RAPHY OF BIBLE LANDS. 

A knowledge of the simple geography of the 
countries mentioned in Scripture is obviously 
essential. Whether we have to do with the mi- 
grations of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, to 
Haran, to Shechem, to Bethel, to Egypt; whether 
we are concerned with the wanderings of Israel 
in the wilderness, or with their conquest of Pal- 
estine ; with the wars against various nations 
under the Judges or during the monarchy ; with 
the exile or the return ; whether we would fol- 
low Paul in his wide # missionary activity, or 
trace the footsteps of his Master in Judaea and 
in Galilee ; everywhere it is necessary to know 
the geographical relations of the countries spoken 
of in order to understand the story. 

Scarcely less essential is a knowledge of their 
physical geography, — their climate, their pro- 
ductions, their rivers, their soil, their caves, their 
mountains, and their plains. Of some of them 
the knowledge is so complete that little needs to 
be said ; while of others the best knowledge at 



88 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

present attainable is but imperfect. The Bible 
itself, attentively read, goes far towards describ- 
ing the more familiar lands, such as Egypt and 
Palestine and the intervening desert. Still much 
additional matter, of no little value in the inter- 
pretation of the sacred narrative, is to be found 
in the accounts given in ancient monuments, and 
in the investigations of modern travelers. The 
nearly rainless climate of Egypt, the depend- 
ence of its fertility upon the annual overflow of 
the Nile, the system of irrigation, the method of 
planting and the succession of the crops, the 
character of the vegetation, and many such mat- 
ters need to be studied. So also of the group 
of mountains around Sinai, the situation of the 
fertile valleys in that generally desolate penin- 
sula, the shrubs, the trees, and the precious 
stones found there, and the traces in many 
parts of a former more abundant vegetation and 
population. In Palestine we need to know the 
natural features of the country not merely as 
bearing directly upon the narrative, whether of 
the Old or New Testament, but also as indirectly 
influencing the character of the various tribes 
and of the peoples who succeeded them. Much 
of our Lord's teaching comes to us with fresh 
force when listened to, as it were, in the locality 
in which it was spoken, and in view of the nat- 
ural scenery by which He was surrounded. The 



GEOGRAPHY OF BIBLE LANDS. 89 

Scripture writers say little of the features of the 
country in which they lived ; they were familiar 
with it themselves and so also were their imme- 
diate readers ; but no one can stand where they 
stood without perceiving a new power in their 
language. As this is the case with the actual 
traveler, so is it true, in its degree, of him who 
takes the same journey in thought by the study 
of maps and descriptions of the land. 

It is well to read over the Bible itself at least 
once with the especial purpose of noting every 
allusion to the physical geography of its lands. 
Besides this, one needs a thorough familiarity 
with the best maps that can be obtained, and 
these are well supplemented by the excellent 
photographs of every part of the country, which 
are now easily accessible ; beyond these, one 
should not only study standard works, such as 
Robinson's "Biblical Researches," but should 
also avail himself of the most reliable books of 
travels in all the countries with which the Bible 
is concerned, and especially with the reports of 
scientific explorations, such as Lynch's "Dead 
Sea," the English "Ordnance Survey of the Si- 
naitic Peninsula," the various works of the Pal- 
estine Exploration Societies, and other works of 
this kind. 

The sort of knowledge here recommended is 
not to be suddenly acquired by a set study, but 



90 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

by going over the ground again and again, until 
by long dwelling upon these things they become 
a part of the mind's treasures to be unconsciously 
drawn upon as often as there may be occasion. 
Particularly in reading the various events in the 
life of our Lord, and many of His parables, we 
should be able mentally to transport ourselves 
into the midst of the scenes and surroundings in 
which He lived and spoke. It is not so much 
that any particular word or phrase will acquire 
a distinctly new meaning, although this is often 
the case ; but the whole will have a vividness, 
force, and reality not otherwise to be obtained. 

This, like all other knowledge, is of gradual 
acquisition. The young interpreter may possess 
it in an imperfect degree ; but the essential thing 
is, that he should recognize it as one of the nec- 
essary qualifications of the well furnished exe- 
gete, and should aim continually to increase his 
preparation in this as in other respects. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GENERAL HISTORY OF SCRIPTURE TIMES. 

The Bible was not formed all at once as a 
complete work, but book has been added to book 
as the exigencies of the times required, and the 
whole has thus come to have an essentially his- 
torical structure. To this structure the history 
not only of the chosen people but of mankind 
has contributed (for although originally given 
to a peculiar nation, it was from the first in- 
tended ultimately for the whole race). This 
structure, apparent even upon its surface, is 
more and more developed by critical study, and 
can be understood only in the light of history ; 
for although the Bible be of Divine origin, it 
has yet been manifested historically and in ac- 
cordance with the laws of history. Each partic- 
ular book of the Bible, too, had an immediate 
and local work to do which forms the reason 
why it should have been thrown primarily into 
the form which it actually bears, although this 
immediate and local work was in most cases not 
only for Israel in and by itself, but for Israel as 
it stood in its relations to mankind. 



92 PBEPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

Again, it is plain, as has been urged in the 
introduction, that the Bible is the record of a 
progressive revelation, given to mankind from 
aoe to age with more and more distinctness ac- 
cording to man's capacity to receive it. To es- 
timate fairly the degree of truth at any time 
conveyed, and to guard against the very com- 
mon but really unscholarly objection, that it was 
not given with greater fullness, it is necessary to 
understand, not only the extent of previous reve- 
lations, but also the actual moral condition of 
the people to whom it was given ; and that con- 
dition was largely affected by influences com- 
ing from beyond their own national boundaries. 
History, in its widest sense, alone can enable us 
to understand this condition, and thus to appre- 
ciate the successive revelations as they were 
given. 

In addition to these general considerations, 
it is to be remembered that the Bible, directly 
considered, presents us with the history of the 
chosen people as they constituted the church of 
God, and speaks of them almost exclusively in 
this relation. After tracing the early history 
of mankind with extremest brevity, it follows 
one chosen line to the call in Abraham of a 
peculiar nation, and then treats of his stem with 
little reference to any other people except in so 
far as they directly interlocked with the history 



HISTORY OF SCRIPTURE TIMES. 93 

of Israel. Its purpose is to lead on to the great 
central fact of the world's history, the redemp- 
tion of mankind by the Messiah, and all history 
that does not bear upon this is left aside. This 
method has undoubtedly adapted the Bible to 
the spiritual wants of all classes in all ages, and 
nothing could be better fitted to impress upon 
mankind the inexpressible value of our spiritual 
relations above all other. At the same time, 
when the mind of the student has been led to in- 
quire into the circumstances under which those 
spiritual relations have been developed, he needs 
to know other history. He needs to take, be- 
sides the inner view given in Scripture, an outer 
view also, and to look upon Israel, not only as 
the Church of God, but as a nation upon earth 
among other nations. 

There is not very much of authentic history, 
outside of the Bible, before the time of Abra- 
ham, and what little remains is but imperfectly 
understood. Still such indications as are given 
by the monuments of Egypt and the inscrip- 
tions of Babylonia, together with the transcripts 
of the latter discovered in the ruins of Nineveh, 
are of great value. They present mankind to 
us, in the same general light, indeed, as the early 
chapters of Genesis, but with a filling out of the 
picture in many an interesting detail. The pyra- 
mids were already monuments of antiquity when 



94 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

Abraham first looked upon them, and the Chal- 
dean legends of his native country were already 
old enough to have become overlaid with a mass 
of legendary fable and perverted to the pur- 
poses of polytheism, when he was called forth 
from his country and kindred to keep alive 
in the world the knowledge of the one true God. 
When we have once become familiar with so 
much of genuine history as can be gathered 
from the mass of ancient legend, we find a new 
light dawning upon us in regard to the necessity 
of a church in the world, and learn far more 
than we should otherwise have known of the 
mercy and loving-kindness of the Father of all. 
About, or somewhat before the time of Abra- 
ham, secular history begins to have its definite 
and well established facts. These facts enable 
us to understand the circumstances in which this 
patriarch and his descendants lived. They bring 
before us two great powers, Egypt on the one 
side, and the combined nations of Mesopotamia 
on the other, struggling for supremacy. Some- 
times it is Pharaoh with his chariots collecting 
the unwilling tribute of the nations along the 
Euphrates ; sometimes it is the " Eavager of the 
West" at the head of his confederate tribes 
ruling over and carrying into captivity the peo- 
ple of Sodom and Gomorrah. A little later, 
there is the culture and civilization of Egypt, in 



HISTORY OF SCRIPTURE TIMES. 95 

the midst of which the Israelites grew up to be 
a people, with its shocking popular polytheism 
and its esoteric monotheism, with its strong civil 
organization and its highly developed priest- 
hood. Then there is Egypt's protection of its 
eastern outposts by the colonization on its north- 
eastern border of the foreign race of Israel ; and 
then comes (in what is to us the period of the 
Judges) the record of its oriental wars, Egypt 
and Israel, though not in alliance, having com- 
mon foes, so that Egypt's prowess became the 
occasion of Israel's prosperity, while her depres- 
sion or occupation with internal troubles gave 
the opportunity for Israel's enemies to carry out 
their schemes of oppression. This opens to the 
interpreter much wider views of the Providen- 
tial ordering of the kingdoms of the world, and 
enables him to understand much that was ob- 
scure in the Scripture narrative considered by 
itself. 1 

As the history of surrounding nations be- 
comes more distinct with the lapse of centuries, 

1 [The view, stated in the text, of the esoteric monotheism 
of the Egyptian priests has been called in question by some of 
the later Egyptologists, as has been also the location of the 
land of Goshen upon the northeastern frontier. There is, how- 
ever, no such harmony or agreement at present among the 
students of Egyptian antiquities as to compel a change of opin- 
ion upon points which have long been regarded as well estab- 
lished. Ed.1 



96 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

it interlocks more and more with the history of 
Israel. In the later times of the monarchy it is 
necessary to trace the parallel lines in the story 
of the surrounding nations in order to compre- 
hend that of Israel. The commerce between 
the cities of the coast and the great empires of 
the East, with its stations and its factors and 
all their corrupting influences, largely passed 
through Palestine, in the midst of the chosen 
people. The great wars between those empires 
and Egypt for the most part rolled along the 
Judsean coast. The history of Nineveh and its 
wars is almost a necessary introduction to the 
tale of the conquest and captivity of the north- 
ern kingdom of Israel, while that of the south- 
ern kingdom can only be thoroughly understood 
after studying the rise and progress of the em- 
pire of Nebuchadnezzar. To appreciate the 
earthly forces that were concerned in the resto- 
ration from the captivity, the history of the 
Medo-Persian empire must be studied, and to 
enter into the meaning of the prophecies of 
Daniel one is obliged to connect with the ori- 
ental empires, the history, the conquests, and 
the civilization of the successive great western 
empires, the Greek, and the Roman. A know- 
ledge of the divisions of the former, and of the 
long struggles of the kingdoms of Alexander's 
successors with one another can alone either 



HISTORY OF SCRIPTURE TIMES. 97 

make clear the prophecies of Daniel, or give us 
a knowledge of the noble efforts of the Macca- 
bees, which had so vast an influence on the later 
character and fortunes of the Jewish people. 
Coming thus to the Gospel time, the relations of 
Rome to its subject peoples need to be studied, 
not only as respects the Jewish people, but 
towards all the nations to whom the Gospel was 
carried during the period of the New Testament 
writings. It is necessary to understand not only 
the outward political history, but also to enter 
into the various philosophical systems in vogue, 
to analyze the history of the current religions of 
the day, and to trace to some extent the rise and 
fall of the religious sects encountered by the 
writers of the Gospels and Epistles. No full un- 
derstanding of these writings can be attained 
without such knowledge. The epistle to the Col- 
ossians, e. g., requires of the interpreter a famil- 
iarity with the doctrines of the Essenes and, in 
connection with these, of the already rising views 
of the Gnostics. The religious and philosophi- 
cal opinions of the Athenians need to be studied 
to appreciate Paul's allusion to " the unknown 
God " (Acts xvii. 23), or to understand why the 
doctrine of the resurrection should have seemed 
to them so especially absurd (ib., 32). The con- 
dition of Roman religious philosophy must be 
known to see what Pilate meant by his question 



98 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

" What is truth ? " (John xviii. 38) ; and of 
the attitude of Roman power towards new re- 
ligions, to understand the proconsul's conduct 
when Paul was accused before him, and the his- 
torian's remark that Gallio cared for none of 
these things (Acts xviii. 17). Sometimes even 
the use and meaning of particular words in the 
New Testament is only thus to be explained. 
John's use of Aoyos (John i. 1-3, 14) is peculiar 
to himself ; and to see how and why he used it, 
and what he meant: to teach by it, the inter- 
preter should be familiar with the use of N n T v^ 
in the Jewish Targums, and with the philosoph- 
ico-theological discussions of Philo, as well as 
with the oriental doctrine of divine emanations, 
and the philosophy of Plato. As another and 
far less important illustration, may be men- 
tioned the word Kopfiav in Mark vii. 11, as requir- 
ing for its explanation a knowledge of the law 
of vows in Lev. xxvii. 1-8, and of the Pharisaic 
perversion of that law. Not infrequently there 
are statements or allusions requiring historical 
knowledge for their interpretation. The whole 
point of John Baptist's reproof of Herod for his 
marriage with Herodias (Matt. xiv. 3, 4) turns 
upon the fact, not mentioned in the text, that 
his brother Philip was still living. 

Often the personal character and life of the 
public men of the time, as of Herod, or of 



HISTORY OF SCRIPTURE TIMES. 99 

Gallio, enters as a factor into the narrative ; 
and continually the position of the speaker or 
writer is so affected by historical circumstances 
or personal characteristics that, without a know- 
ledge of these, it is impossible to enter into the 
standpoint of the writers and thus come to 
understand precisely what they meant to say. 
Even familiarity with the later history of Chris- 
tian institutions often throws light upon the 
meaning of incidental notices, as, for example, 
the repeated mention of the assembling of the 
disciples " on the first day of the week " is ex- 
plained by the observance of the Lord's day in 
the Christian Church. 

Great facilities for such historical study are 
afforded by the more modern commentaries and 
books of reference ; yet, here as everywhere, it 
is never to be forgotten that those students stand 
upon a firmer and broader ground who have 
obtained this knowledge for themselves from 
original authorities, or at least from authorities 
who did not have the interpretation of Scripture 
as their object. Every opportunity, therefore, 
should be embraced by the student to fill his 
mind with the history both of the political 
events and of the philosophies, religions, and 
opinions of all the nations which come in con- 
tact with the sacred volume, and also with the 
life and character of the more prominent heathen 



100 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

actors on the scene, so that all these things may- 
rise up unconsciously in his mind, as a part of 
his own personal knowledge, as often as he ap- 
plies himself to the interpretation of any part of 
Scripture on which they have a bearing. 



CHAPTER V. 

ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTIQUITIES. 

The subject of this chapter is closely con- 
nected with that of the last, and may seem, to 
some extent, to have been anticipated ; but it 
would be a broad sense of history which would 
include all that is here intended. The archae- 
ology and antiquities of the following nations 
have an especial bearing upon the interpretation 
of the Bible : Egypt ; the tribes of the Desert ; 
the Phoenician nations ; the various civilizations 
that dominated in turn the regions around the 
Tigris and Euphrates, going back to the days 
anterior to Abraham, and coming down at least 
to the Maccabean period ; Palestine itself, both 
in its original possession, and as the home of 
the chosen people ; Greece, in its conquests 
under Alexander, and later in its condition just 
at and subsequent to the Christian era ; and 
Rome, with all those subject nations not yet in- 
cluded in this summary, particularly those of 
Asia Minor. Here is a wide field, part of which 
has already been carefully explored, and the re- 
sults of those explorations made easily acces- 



102 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

sible ; part of it is very little known, and, for 
want of sufficient data, is not likely ever to be- 
come very familiar, but in regard to which such 
glimpses of information as we have are particu- 
larly valuable ; and still another part is under a 
rapid process of investigation, every year adding 
largely to our stores of knowledge. 

Egypt has become almost as familiar as the 
classic lands, and has been made to yield up 
stores of long buried information having a most 
intimate connection with large portions of the 
holy volume. So much of the history of the 
patriarchs and their descendants is bound up 
with Egypt, from the days of Abraham down to 
the Exodus, that its traditions and monuments 
have long been a storehouse of illustrations for 
the Old Testament commentator. The connec- 
tion was renewed under the reign of Solomon 
and continued through the period of the mon- 
archy, closing with so great an emigration of 
Jews to the land of the Pharaohs as to require 
the translation of the Septuagint, a work of 
powerful influence upon the New Testament 
writers. Perhaps the most important influence 
of Egypt was upon the Mosaic legislation and 
ceremonial. Much yet remains to be done in 
tracing the influence of the one upon the other, 
but that there was such an influence, of a most 
important character, cannot be doubted by those 



ARCHEOLOGY AND ANTIQUITIES. 103 

who consider, on the one hand, that the people 
had lived for so many generations under the in- 
fluence of Egyptian thought, and culture, and 
ceremonial, and, on the other, that God has al- 
ways shown a tender regard for the needs and 
capacities of His people by adapting His com- 
mands to their condition at the time they were 
given. It is to be remembered too, that, as has 
been already said, 1 with all its outrageous popu- 
lar creature worship, the religion of Egypt was 
yet based upon an esoteric doctrine of monothe- 
ism with which probably Abraham, certainly 
Joseph and Moses, must have been intimately 
acquainted. The influence of an hereditary 
priesthood, the universal and firmly rooted be- 
lief in the life beyond the grave and the future 
state of retribution, the high state of advance- 
ment in the arts and manufactures, the more 
prominent position of woman in society, and a 
multitude of other matters, must have made a 
deep impression upon a people who grew to be 
a nation and lived for generations in their midst ; 
and even if it be difficult to trace the positive 
influence of some of these things upon the legis- 
lation given from Sinai, it yet remains that they 
deeply affected the character and habits of the 
people to whom that legislation was given, and 
hence of necessity, indirectly at least, that legis- 

1 Page 95, note. 



104 PREPABATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

lation itself. As a single instance of the influ- 
ence of Egypt upon the Israel of a later day, one 
needs but to ask whence Solomon derived the 
idea of the porch in front of the temple (1 Kings 
vi. 3 ; 2 Chron. iii. 4), which had nothing corre- 
sponding to it in the earlier tabernacle. A glance 
at a photograph of the propylon of a temple in 
the land from which Solomon asked the daugh- 
ter of Pharaoh in marriage, will give the answer. 
The archaeology of Babylon and Nineveh is 
important in another direction. Their monu- 
mental inscriptions and the records of their clay 
tablets and cylinders, in so far as yet exhumed 
and deciphered, present to view the heathen 
legend corresponding to much of the early narra- 
tives of Genesis. 1 Some of these may be of but 
little more value than the traditions of many 
other nations concerning the creation, the fall, 
and the flood, yet are more interesting as found 
in the locality near which all such traditions 
must have had their origin. But others, such as 
the inscription of Nebuchadnezzar on the tower 
of Borsippa, recording the ancient suspension of 
the building of the tower on account of the con- 
fusion of tongues, bear such distinct testimony 
to the Scripture statement, as to show that this 
must be interpreted historically, and not as an 
allegorical presentation of what happened to 

1 Vide Smith, Chaldean Genesis. 



ARCHEOLOGY AND ANTIQUITIES. 105 

mankind. 1 Others, again, like the inscription 
of Nabunahit, speaking of his son, Bel-shar-ezer, 
as sitting also upon the throne, remove what 
had long been considered as insoluble difficulties 
from the sacred page. 2 The linguistic and eth- 
nological revelations in this unique literature 
are of the highest value to the interpreter ; and 
the actual historical statements interlock strik- 
ingly with the narrative of the later Israelitish 
monarchies. It is not to be expected that the 
ordinary exegete can make himself familiar with 
either the language or the character of these 
cuneiform inscriptions, any more than with the 
hieroglyphics of Egypt ; but in both cases the 
interest in these discoveries is so manifold and 
so great, that the results of the labors of special 
students are being continually spread before the 
public in accessible form, and these results are 
in many cases so confirmed as the fruit of the 
independent labor of scholars in different lands 
that they may be accepted as reliable. 

These instances may suffice to show the im- 
portance to the exegete of other archaeological 
investigations. The value of a study of Greek 
and Roman antiquities is so well understood that 

1 Vide Oppert, in Smith's Dictionary (Am. Ed.), art. " Con- 
fusion of Tongues," Appendix ; cf., also, Records of the Past, 
vol. vii., pp. 131, 132 and Rawlinson, Egypt and Babylon, pp. 
6-10. 

2 Records of the Past, vol. v., p. 144; vide, also, Rawlinson, 
as above, pp. 111-124. 



106 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

it does not require to be dwelt upon. Much has 
been done in this matter by multitudes of schol- 
ars from old time ; but gleanings of great inter- 
est still remain to reward the labor of the modern 
investigator. 1 

It is plain that the exegete, to be properly- 
furnished for his work, must keep himself well 
abreast of all modern archaeological researches, 
not only in connection with the nations espe- 
cially mentioned, but also with others of which 
there is not space to speak particularly. 

Another use of such researches is to put the 
student in possession of a portraiture of the 
manners and customs, the ideas and thoughts of 
nations who came continually into contact with 
the Hebrews, and must have exercised no small 
influence over them, not to speak of the more 
direct examination of the same things anions 
the Israelites themselves, valuable not only for 
the time to which they immediately relate, but 
also for all times in the history of that oriental 
people, whose habits and customs had such re- 
markable fixity. 

A word only need be said, in conclusion, of 
the lifelike reality winch is given to the narra- 
tives and the allusions of the New Testament by 
the knowledge of the surroundings and the cir- 
cumstances in the midst of which they occurred. 

1 For further illustration, vide chapters xv., xvi., on " The 
Use of History" and " The Use of Archeology." 



CHAPTER VI. 

KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 

The qualification of the interpreter now to be 
spoken of is not only rarely possessed, but its 
value is not appreciated. It is easy to see that 
in a few well-known instances the advance of 
natural science has essentially modified the com- 
mon interpretation of particular passages, as, 
e. g., those which speak of the rising and setting 
of the sun, or of the four corners of the earth. 
It is also well known that some serious difficul- 
ties with particular statements have been re- 
moved in the same way, as in regard to the 
brittleness of the gold of the calf in the wilder- 
ness (Ex. xxxii. 20). The study of the laws of 
leprosy in Lev. xiii., xiv., and of many other 
diseases mentioned in Scripture, is greatly aided 
by medical research. But it is apt to be thought 
that these results of natural science come to the 
aid of the interpreter only in a few isolated 
cases, which can readily be taken on trust at sec- 
ond hand. No view can be more mistaken. The 
word and the works of God are in some sort 
parallel revelations, and the one must continually 



108 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

illustrate and explain the other. A knowledge 
of nature, in other words, a knowledge of all 
that is just and true in natural science, must di- 
rectly affect the interpretation of that large part 
of the Divine word which bears upon nature, 
and must also be a most important factor in our 
conceptions of the being and the activity of the 
God of nature and revelation alike. 

Moreover, science is continually led to the in- 
vestigation of questions, such as the origin of 
life, which had been supposed long settled by the 
accepted interpretations of Scripture, while on 
the other hand, the Bible deals unhesitatingly 
with many a point, such as the creation, the in- 
tervention of the supernatural in the affairs of 
the world, and the resurrection to come, on 
which it is often thought that science is entitled 
to an opinion. With this constant interlacing 
of the work of the exegete with the work of the 
scientist, of which only a very few instances have 
been mentioned, it is not to be supposed that the 
teachings of Scripture can be fairly interpreted 
without knowing what light is cast upon them 
by the researches of science. 

Again, a knowledge of natural science is nec- 
essary to any intelligent appreciation of the 
proper limits of its domain, and hence of the 
points where the interpreter ought to be guided 
by its teachings. The human mind is so con- 



KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 109 

stituted that it strives to complete its cycle of 
truth, and the student of Scripture must neces- 
sarily have his opinions upon questions of nat- 
ural science which stand closely related to the 
teachings of revelation. If these are formed 
without scientific knowledge, they will be quite 
likely to be formed erroneously ; and experience 
shows that, once adopted, they are apt to be ad- 
hered to and to be set forth as if they had been 
distinctly revealed. Then comes that unfortu- 
nate result, that while such opinions are found 
to be erroneous and are rejected as such by the 
student of science, they are maintained as the 
truth of the word of God by the unfurnished 
interpreter. The so-called conflict between re- 
ligion and science has arisen in large measure 
from this source. The danger was seen and a 
warning note was uttered by the wiser theologi- 
ans of antiquity. Augustine earnestly enjoined 
the Christians of his day not to involve opinions 
on physical science with the teaching of the 
Bible. When better instructed unbelievers, he 
says, "discover some Christian in error in a 
matter which they themselves know thoroughly, 
and supporting his opinion out of our books, 
how shall they believe those books concerning 
the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal 
life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think 
them delusively written on things which they 



110 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

can know by actual experience or by certain cal- 
culations? How great sorrow and anxiety do 
these rash dogmatizers inflict on their wiser 
brethren, if, when they are blamed and convicted 
of the rashness and falsehood of their opinion 
by those who are not bound by the authority of 
our books, they seek to defend what they have 
said with most inconsiderate rashness or most 
evident error out of the same sacred books." x 

There are certain of the broader and grander 
generalizations of modern natural science which 
have a most intimate bearing on the view to be 
taken of the being and attributes of the Su- 
preme ; but these generalizations cannot be in- 
telligently held without some knowledge of the 
inductions by which they have been reached. 
Such are, in the first place, the recognition of the 
insufficiency of nature for itself, and the neces- 
sity, therefore, of supposing some Power above 
and beyond, under whose ordering nature has 
been evolved ; this we recognize to be distinctly 
the position of the advanced science of our time. 
Again, there can be no firmer conclusion of sci- 
ence than that the whole cosmos is under the 
government of an immutable order which is 
commonly described as " natural law," although 
without, perhaps, a very distinct recognition of 
the meaning of the word " law ; " it is only nec- 
1 Aug., De Genesi ad litter am, I. xix. 39. 



KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. Ill 

essary to understand this word as a convenient 
expression for the immutable will of the Su- 
preme Being, and we are at once brought to the 
position so much insisted upon in Scripture, and 
learn to attach a fresh fullness of meaning to its 
teachings. This idea of the unchangeableness 
of God, constantly insisted upon in the descrip- 
tions of " the Father of lights, with whom is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning " (Jas. 
i. 17), is a most important factor in exegesis, and 
is brought into the clearest light by the conclu- 
sions of science. It at once removes all those 
interpretations, once so current, which represent 
our Heavenly Father as an arbitrary or capri- 
cious Being. Along with this truth comes the 
doctrine of the immanence of the Creator in 
his works. Science recognizes that nature has 
not only ultimately proceeded from a Power be- 
yond itself, but is constantly sustained by it. The 
Force which gave it being remains always its 
sustaining cause. The interpreter is thus led 
back again from secondary causes to the con- 
ception of the old Hebrew seers of God in every- 
thing ; all is his work, and, as Paul expresses 
it, He is " all in all " (1 Cor. xv. 28 ; Eph. i. 
23 ; cf, 1 Cor. xii. 6 ; Col. iii. 11). The influence 
of this conception upon the whole scheme of in- 
terpretation is plain. Closely connected with 
this is still another truth, always obvious indeed. 



112 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

but one which scientific researches have strongly 
emphasized. While the laws of nature, in other 
words, the Divine will, remain unchangeable, 
the course of nature may be greatly modified by 
the intervention of intelligence. This is seen 
on so large a scale and under so great variety of 
circumstance in man's action upon the earth 
that it is difficult to set any bounds to the modi- 
fication of the course of nature which may be 
accomplished by Infinite Power without becom- 
ing inconsistent with Itself. This covers the 
whole ground of the possibility of miracles, and 
shows how they are to be understood at once as 
evidences of the presence of supernatural power, 
and yet as not violations of the laws of nature ; 
in fact, evidences of that Power because, like all 
other things, they must be consistent with those 
laws which are but the expression of the un- 
changeable will of God. 

Again, science, in showing that nature is in- 
sufficient to itself and that there must be a 
Power behind it, shows that this Power, in its 
own Essence, must be inscrutable to man. The 
infinite cannot be comprehended of the finite. 
Science thus helps us to interpret those many 
passages which declare that " no man hath seen 
God at any time " (John i. 18 ; 1 Tim. vi. 16), 
that no man by searching can find him out (Job 
xi. 7, etc.). This truth has many and most im- 



KNOWLEDGE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 113 

portant bearings for the interpreter. It shows 
the necessity of a mediator that the Infinite and 
the finite may be brought together. It shows 
the folly of attempting to portray the Divine 
Being as but an omnipotent man ; and it leads 
us to expect to find in His revelation indications 
of that which is beyond the grasp of the finite 
mind. Farther, this scientific truth of the in- 
scrutableness of God in His absolute Essence, 
makes it clear that any revelation of Himself to 
man must be, not absolute, but in terms adapted 
to man's capacity, and hence more or less both 
partial and anthropomorphic ; and that these 
characteristics of revelation will be more marked 
in the spiritual infancy of the race, gradually 
lessening as a higher spiritual education is at- 
tained. This is a most important clue to the in- 
terpretation of Scripture. So much has been 
said in this connection in the introduction that 
it need not be enlarged upon here except to note 
that however else the same conclusion may be 
reached, it also comes as a necessary result of 
scientific thought. 

Enough has been said to show the value to 
the exegete of preparation for his work by a 
knowledge of natural science. It not merely 
cultivates his mind on another side, and gives 
him that balance of thought necessary to the 



114 PBEPABATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

best work in every department, but it especially 
enables him to see how the Almighty is pre- 
sented to human thought through His activities 
in nature, and thus helps to understand the 
revelation of Himself in His word. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE RELIGIOUS PREPARATION OF ,THE INTER- 
PRETER. 

This chapter has been purposely deferred to 
this point that the religious qualification of the 
interpreter may not seem to be treated merely 
as a matter of conventional propriety, but rather 
as one of his really necessary qualifications, along 
with others, though more fundamentally essential 
than any other, to the true understanding of the 
Scriptures. 

In all interpretation the first requisite is, that 
the interpreter should place himself in the posi- 
tion of the writer, and study the writing from 
his standpoint and in reference to the object he 
had in view. Now the one thing common to all, 
or nearly all, the writers of Scripture is, that 
they were religious men and wrote for a reli- 
gious purpose. Only a religious man can see 
things as they saw them, and understand things 
as they understood them. It is often possible 
for a person to transport himself in thought and 
imagination into circumstances and conditions 
of mind and heart which are not his own, and 



116 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

thus come to appreciate that of which he has 
no actual experience, and this must be done in 
many matters by every modern interpreter of an 
ancient writer ; but it cannot be done in regard 
to their general religious character. The differ- 
ence betweeen the religious and the irreligious 
man lies far too deep down among the ultimate 
facts of human nature. " That which is born of 
the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the 
Spirit is spirit " (John iii. 6) ; " the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither 
can he know them, because they are spiritually 
discerned " (1 Cor. ii. 14). The teaching of 
Scripture itself thus concurs with the abundant 
lesson of life, that there is an experience of all- 
pervading character which some men lack, and 
which others have in greater or less degree, and 
this is precisely the experience which enables 
them to understand the Divine dealings with 
man, and the Heavenly message to him. It is 
an experience which is concerned with the obe- 
dience of the heart to the will of God ; and 
unless the interpreter's own heart is thus obedi- 
ent, he cannot expect to understand those whose 
lives-were subjected to the will of God, and who 
wrote for the express object of leading others to 
submit to the same will. 

It does not follow from this that the Bible is 



PREPARATION OF THE INTERPRETER. 117 

a sealed book, utterly incomprehensible to the 
worldly man, any more than that it is so to him 
who has no knowledge of its original languages, 
or of ancient history ; for then it must fail of its 
purpose in leading man on from his natural state 
to the love and obedience of God. But it does 
follow that, since the Bible is essentially a spir- 
itual book, it is impossible to enter into its 
deeper and richer meaning until there is a re- 
ligious harmony between it and the spirit of the 
interpreter. 

Not only were the writers themselves religious 
men, but behind them, and inspiring them, was 
the Holy Spirit. Difficult as it may be to de- 
fine the precise nature and mode of action of 
inspiration, it is plain that, in consequence of it, 
the sacred writings are different from what they 
would otherwise have been. What is there 
said has often a deeper meaning than the writers 
themselves knew, — not another meaning, as if 
they had expressed themselves ambiguously, but 
a fullness of meaning beyond their power of 
penetration. A young man may use truly words 
expressive of the experience of life, which will 
come in later years to have, even to himself, a 
force he did not understand when he first uttered 
them. So the infants of the spiritual kingdom, 
under the guidance of its Head, have so written, 
that only those under the teaching of the same 



118 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

Spirit can enter into His meaning, and even with 
them, a life of spiritual experience shall still fail 
to exhaust the richness of His teachino-. 

Our Lord points out to the unbelieving Jews 
that they could not understand His speech, sim- 
ple enough in its words, because their hearts 
were alienated from the truth (John viii. 43) ; 
and again He said that obedience to the will of 
the Father was a necessary prerequisite to a 
knowledge of the doctrine He taught (John vii. 
17). His Apostles continually speak of the 
need of spiritual enlightenment in order to know 
the revelation made to the Church, and they con- 
sidered those who were " alienated from the life 
of God " as having " the understanding dark- 
ened " (see Eph. i. 18 ; iv. 18, etc.). The " be- 
loved disciple," in all his writings, brings out 
with especial fullness the fact, that the " under- 
standing that we may know Him that is true " 
is a gift of God, given to them that are " in 
His Son Jesus Christ " (1 John v. 20, etc.). 

It must then certainly be right, even from the 
intellectual point of view, to set down a know- 
ledge and experience of the religious life as 
among the foremost and chiefest of the neces- 
sary qualifications of the exegete for his work. 
Without this, he may explain never so accurately 
the outward and superficial sense of the word of 
life, but he can never penetrate to the meaning 



PREPARATION OF THE INTERPRETER. 119 

of that life itself. While, therefore, all learning I 
and knowledge and study need to be applied to 
the interpretation of the Bible, they must first 
be laid at the foot of the cross, and there be 
touched by the enlightening Spirit of God. In 
this work it is true with an especial emphasis, 
Bene orasse est bene studuisse. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

KNOWLEDGE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 

After the more general preparation of the 
interpreter spoken of in the preceding chapters, 
it goes without saying that he must have a 
knowledge of the original languages. For this 
there is a double reason : first, that he may be 
able to ascertain the exact sense of the Divine 
oracles conveyed in those languages ; and sec- 
ond, but not less important, that he may be able 
to enter into the general tone and spirit of those 
oracles. 

The Bible, and especially the Old Testament, 
is in its human form thoroughly the work of a 
Semitic people, and bears the impress of their 
peculiar genius. While that genius is learned 
in some measure from their history, it is to be 
understood still more intimately from their lan- 
guage. Without a knowledge of this, the inter- 
preter can but imperfectly enter into the mind 
of the writers. 

The languages of the Bible are the Hebrew, 
the Chaldee, and the Greek. So small a part 



KNOWLEDGE OF ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 121 

of the Old Testament is in Chaldee, and that 
language differs so little from the Hebrew, that 
a knowledge of it might seem unnecessary except 
for the interpretation of the passages actually 
written in Chaldee. Those portions, however, 
especially chapters ii. and vii. of Daniel, are of 
great importance, and the Biblical Hebrew, both 
in its very earliest form, before it had become 
completely differentiated from the Chaldee, 
and also in its later development at the time of 
the captivity, when it was directly influenced by 
the Chaldee, is only to be fully understood by 
the aid of this dialect ; moreover, a knowledge 
of it so helps to the understanding of the lan- 
guage chiefly spoken in Palestine by the Jews 
of the Christian era, that this also must be 
placed among the requisite apparatus of the Bib- 
lical exegete. Further, it is only by this that 
the ancient Jewish paraphrases of the Old Tes- 
tament, known as Targums, can be unlocked, 
and these are often a material aid to the inter- 
preter. 

In regard to the Hebrew and Greek, both are 
essential to the interpreter whether of the Old 
or of the New Testament. Although the New 
Testament is in Greek, yet it is in Greek largely 
influenced by Hebrew, and one must understand 
Hebrew to rightly appreciate its deviations from 
the classic model as well as from its modification 



122 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

in the so-called kolvt] StaAeK-ros. 1 Besides this, the 
writings of the New Testament abound in quota- 
tions from the Old, in reference to its law, its 
poetry, and its history, and in fact are profess- 
edly a new revelation made within and based 
upon the old. As it is impossible rightly to 
interpret the New without a knowledge of the 
Old Testament, so a knowledge of the language 
of the latter becomes a necessity to the under- 
standing of the former. Still further, it is to 
be remembered that the language probably 
spoken by our Lord, and in some instances dis- 
tinctly said to have been used by his Apostles, 
was a dialect called Aramaic, so little modified 
from the Hebrew as still to be described by that 
name, as in John xix. 20 ; Acts xxi. 40. So far 
as these portions are concerned, the Greek offers 
us only a translation of the words actually used. 
While it cannot be necessary to know in all 
cases the original of those words, since Provi- 
dence has not seen fit that they should be pre- 

1 The Attic dialect gradually degenerated into what is 
known as the kolv^j Sic^Ae/cros, and on this was founded the 
so-called Macedo-Alexandrian dialect, which, becoming" ancient 
in the time of the Ptolemies, spread from Alexandria over the 
Greek Asiatic kingdoms. In this process not only did words 
often become modified in sense, and new constructions come in, 
as in the history of all languages, but in this enormous expan- 
sion of Greek culture and power, it assimilated to itself, and 
was obliged to provide for, the intellectual needs of peoples 
of many lands and races. 



KNOWLEDGE OF ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 123 

served, yet oftentimes a knowledge of their lan- 
guage will enable us to interpret correctly their 
Greek translation where we should otherwise 
be in danger of going astray. Thus in Matt, 
xvi. 18, occurs the famous passage o-v el Uerpos, 

/cat liri ravrrj rfj 7rerpa OLKoSojJLrjcru) jjlov ttjv IkkXtj- 

o-tav, where many commentators have insisted 
upon the difference in gender between the forms 
7rerpos and TreVpa. . A knowledge of Greek alone 
gives a reason for this change in the Greek form, 
TT€Tpo% the masculine, being necessary as the sur- 
name of a man, while -n-erpa is also necessary as 
the designation of a foundation, meaning a rock 
in situ, while -n-irpos signifies only a stone. A 
possible doubt here arises from the fact that 
7T€Tpos is sometimes, though rarely, used in the 
sense of irirpa in poetry. This doubt is at once 
removed by turning to the Chaldee, where we 
find that both words are represented by the 
form st^5 == Cephas, which John alone has pre- 
served in the Gospels (i. 42), but which occurs 
frequently in the Pauline epistles (1 Cor. i. 12 ; 
iii. 22 ; ix. 5 ; xv. 5 ; Gal. i. 18 ; ii. 9, 11, 14). 
This was undoubtedly the word actually used by 
our Lord, and scarcely leaves room for question 
that He intended to designate Peter personally 
as the human foundation of His church, as it 
actually came to pass historically among the 
Jews and the Gentiles alike. 



124 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

Not less necessary to the interpreter of the 
Old Testament is a knowledge of Greek. Very 
many passages are quoted and interpreted in the 
New Testament, and it is necessary to study 
carefully that interpretation. Broad views are 
frequently there given of large portions of the 
Old Testament, and the interpreter needs to 
know precisely what those views are. But 
beside this direct connection between the He- 
brew Old Testament and the Greek New Testa- 
ment, upon which it is scarcely possible to lay 
too much emphasis, there is a further use of the 
Greek in the interpretation of the older Scrip- 
tures by themselves. The earliest complete 
translation of them was into the Greek of the 
Septuagint. Although that translation is of 
very unequal accuracy, and was evidently made 
by men unequally skilled in Hebrew, yet parts 
of it at least were made nearly three centuries 
before the Christian era, and nearer than this to 
the time when the Hebrew was still a living lan- 
guage, and when traditionary interpretation was 
still of great value. While, therefore, it is often 
plain that the translators have quite mistaken 
the sense of their original, and while no great 
reliance can be placed upon them in passages 
where the text of the Hebrew may be supposed 
to be vitiated, yet the interpreter cannot afford 
to dispense with the light of this earliest of the 



KNOWLEDGE OF ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 125 

versions, made by men who were themselves 
Hebrews. 

In addition to these languages there are sev- 
eral others of more or less value to the interpre- 
ter. The Samaritan version, which extends 
through the Pentateuch, is of great antiquity. 
After much discussion of its age, it is now gen- 
erally considered to belong to the time when 
Manasseh, with many other priests, apostatized 
from Jerusalem to Samaria, and was confirmed 
in his high-priesthood upon Mount Gerizim by 
Alexander as he passed to his eastern conquests. 
This gives it a considerably greater age than the 
Septuagint, and it is also a far more literal ver- 
sion. Its critical value is not great, and it bears 
evident marks of some corruption of the Hebrew 
ceremonial ; but it is still worthy of the atten- 
tion of the interpreter. In more than a thou- 
sand places it agrees with the Septuagint in its 
differences from the Hebrew ; while in about as 
many it differs from them both where they 
agree, and in still others where they differ, it 
differs from them both. 

There are no other versions before the Chris- 
tian era. Subsequent to that date there are 
three principal Greek versions of the Old Tes- 
tament, those of Aquila, of Theodotion, and of 
Symmachus. Only fragments have been pre- 
served of any of these. That of Aquila follows 



126 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

the Hebrew so servilely that its remaining por- 
tions are of use in the criticism of the Hebrew 
text. Both this and the version of Theodotion 
were undoubtedly prepared with a polemical 
purpose, in the interest of Jews hostile to Chris- 
tianity ; yet Theodotion's translation of Daniel 
was so much preferred by Origen to that of the 
Septuagint that it was used in its place in the 
Christian churches, and is now found in the 
printed editions of the Septuagint. The true 
Septuagint version was long supposed to be lost, 
and has only been recovered from a single man- 
uscript ; from this it is printed as an appendix 
in Teschendorf's Septuagint. 

The most important by far of the post-Chris- 
tian versions is that of Jerome, which forms the 
basis of the present Vulgate. This translation 
was made at a far earlier time than that of any 
existing Hebrew manuscripts, and long before 
the introduction of the Masoretic vowel points 
and accents. Jerome obtained his knowledge 
of the language, of the Hebrew text, and of the 
details of its meaning from the Jews of Pales- 
tine ; and as his scholarship was unquestionable, 
and his fidelity as a translator conspicuous, his 
version becomes an important aid both in the 
criticism of the Hebrew text and the interpreta- 
tion of its meaning. No other version is of 
equal value in the Old Testament. He did not 



KNOWLEDGE OF ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 127 

give the same care to the New Testament, where 
his work was not that of a new translation, but 
only a revision of existing translations, and even 
this was chiefly confined to the Gospels. In the 
New Testament it is necessary to have recourse 
to the " Vetus Latina " and to the " Itala," in 
connection with Jerome's version ; and, even 
thus, the Latin of the New Testament is of 
more value for the criticism of the text than for 
the interpretation of its meaning. 

Besides these, the Syriac version may be 
warmly recommended to the exegete, especially 
in the New Testament, both because of its great 
antiquity, and also because the language is so 
closely assimilated to the Hebrew and Chaldee 
as to throw no inconsiderable light upon the 
words actually used by our Lord. The same 
fact makes its acquisition very easy to the He- 
brew scholar. There are a series of Syriac ver- 
sions extending from the second to the seventh 
century. The Arabic is much later and of far 
less value as a version, while that language is so 
full and rich as to make its acquisition a matter 
of considerable difficulty. The Arabic, however, 
is by far the most complete of all the Semitic 
tongues, and hence its great value for purposes 
of comparative philology is recognized by He- 
brew lexicographers. Great caution is required 
in its use in this way, and a constant recollec- 



128 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

tion of the changes in sense which words fre- 
quently undergo in cognate languages. Other 
ancient languages into which the Scriptures 
have been translated, such as the Ethiopic, the 
Armenian, and the Gothic, are of more impor- 
tance to the New Testament textual critic than 
to the interpreter. Translations into modern 
languages have somewhat the value of commen- 
taries, oftentimes showing the meaning of the 
text adopted by scholars who especially devoted 
themselves to the work of translation. 



CHAPTER IX. 

TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 

The criticism of the text of Scripture is a 
special art, demanding special preparation and 
researches of a kind so thorough and exhaustive 
that it must, in the main, be left as the life work 
of the specialist. The determination of the text, 
moreover,. is generally more safely entrusted to 
other hands than those of the exegete, since his 
judgment is in danger of being warped by his 
interpretation. It would always be rash in him 
to call in question the common conclusion of 
scholars who have made textual criticism their 
especial study. But there are many passages in 
which no such common conclusion has been 
reached in consequence of conflicting evidence, 
and there are others in which the conclusion has 
been based largely on internal evidence, and in 
many of these the exegete is as competent a 
judge as the critic. For the sake of both these 
classes of passages, and also that the exegete 
may know the character and force of the evi- 
dence in other cases, it behooves him to make 
himself familiar with the principles of textual 



130 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

criticism. He will not need often to apply them 
independently ; but he ought to know what they 
are. 

That the text of neither of the Testaments has 
come down to us in a perfect condition has al- 
ready been shown in the introduction. It is the 
object of textual criticism to ascertain and re- 
store, as nearly as possible, the original text 
as it left the hands of the sacred penman. The 
data and the methods for this purpose are quite 
different in the case of the Old and of the New 
Testaments. It will be necessary to treat them 
separately, and it is better to speak of the text 
of the New Testament first, since far more labor 
has been bestowed upon it, the principles of its 
criticism are better settled, the data for estab- 
lishing it more complete, and there is more gen- 
eral acquiescence in the results obtained. 

I. Textual Criticism of the New Testa- 
ment. 

The " Textus Eeceptus " of the New Testa- 
ment is a term variously applied to the edition 
of Robert Stephens of 1550, or to the first 
edition of the Elzevirs, 1624. In both cases it 
was an attempt, on the basis of a small number 
of manuscripts and such research as the times 
allowed, to present a text which should approach 
as nearly as possible to the original writing. 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 131 

Afterwards, more and better manuscripts came 
to light ; means were found of determining their 
age within narrow limits, and of ascertaining 
their relative value ; much attention was given 
by competent scholars to the art of determin- 
ing the true reading, and a large amount of val- 
uable data was gradually accumulated. Really 
critical editions may be considered, however, as 
beginning in 1774 with Griesbach, whose labors 
extended to 1807. Since his time the data have 
been continually accumulating, important manu- 
scripts have been brought to light, versions have 
been more carefully examined, and the prin- 
ciples of textual criticism have been discussed 
and elaborated until they may now be consid- 
ered as settled on a firm basis. Many critical 
editions have consequently been published, giv- 
ing the authorities on both sides for and against 
the various readings. Among the most recent 
and important of these, besides the special work 
of Lachmann, are the editions of Tregelles, the 
eighth edition of Tischendorf , and that of West- 
cott and Hort. 

The data for the determination of the text 
are, in the first place, manuscripts. The whole 
number of manuscripts containing any part of 
the New Testament is very large ; but only a 
comparatively small portion of them contain the 
whole, and of these the greater part have suf- 



132 PBEPABATION FOB INTEBPBETING. 

fered more or less from the ravages of time. 
These manuscripts are of unequal value. It is 
plain that a carelessly written one of the fif- 
teenth century cannot compare with a carefully 
written one of the fourth or fifth. The great 
advance of textual criticism was made when the 
means were discovered of distinguishing between 
the manuscripts of more and of less value. They 
are broadly divided into two classes, uncials and 
cursives. The former are written throughout in 
capital letters, and are referred to under the 
capital letters : first of the Roman alphabet (A, 
B, C, etc.), then of the letters of the Greek 
alphabet unlike them (r, A, @, etc.), and finally 
the Codex Sinaiticus as W. The latter are writ- 
ten in cursive characters and are designated by 
the Arabic numerals 1, 2, 3, etc. Uncial was the 
common form of writing until the middle of the 
tenth century, while cursive began to be used 
towards the close of the ninth, and became the 
prevailing form from the eleventh, onwards. In 
general, therefore, the uncials are older than the 
cursives ; but it does not follow that in all cases 
the older manuscripts are the better. It may 
have been that a manuscript of the eleventh cen- 
tury, e. (/., has been carefully copied from one 
of the fourth now no longer in existence, while 
another of the fifth century has only been copied 
from a contemporary. There are also great dif- 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 133 

ferences in the care and skill with which the 
work of the copyist has been done. It is neces- 
sary, therefore, to test the manuscripts and deter- 
mine which of them contain the most accurate 
text. This has been done by selecting a large 
number of test passages and determining the 
true reading independently of the manuscripts, 
and then observing which of them correspond 
most closely with the readings thus determined. 
In this way it has been decided that the very 
oldest manuscripts are also the best, and that a 
comparatively few later ones are to be ranked 
next to them. The joint testimony of these few 
outweighs the authority of the great mass of 
inferior manuscripts. For a fuller description 
of the manuscripts and their classification and 
relative value, reference must be made to the va- 
rious special works on textual criticism. None 
of these manuscripts are earlier than the fourth 
century, and there are only two, S and B, of that 
age. 

The next source for the determination of the 
text is found in the " Versions." The more im- 
portant of these were made with scrupulous fidel- 
ity at an age far anterior to the earliest existing 
manuscripts. The most important, as well as 
the most carefully studied, is the Latin. This 
is known in several forms, the oldest of which, 
the " Vetus Latina," had already received a 



134 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

definite shape by the middle of the second cen- 
tury. It was prepared in North Africa, and is 
in barbarous Latin, but follows the Greek text 
with exceeding closeness. Its manuscripts are 
referred to by the small letters of the Roman 
alphabet, a, b, c, etc., these three, a, b, c, being 
of far greater importance than the others. 
When this version passed over to Northern 
Italy, the uncouthness of its language led, in 
the fourth century, to a revision known as the 
u Itala,"th3 manuscripts of which are designated 
by the same kind of letters, that marked f being 
the most valuable of them. Several other revis- 
ions were made which are occasionally referred 
to, and by the close of the fourth century the 
confusion had become so great that Jerome was 
requested to undertake a revision. His labor 
was chiefly spent upon the Gospels, and most 
manuscripts of this revision are cited under the 
abbreviations, am. (Codex Amiatinus) and fuld. 
(Codex Fuldensis). This revision of Jerome 
became the basis of the Vulgate, which has 
undergone many further revisions. 

The Syriac versions stand next in value to 
the Latin, and, like the Latin, exist in several 
different forms. There is evidence of the exist- 
ence of a Syriac translation of the Gospels at 
least as early as the middle of the second cen- 
tury. There exists now but a single imperfect 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 135 

manuscript (of the fifth century), the Cureto- 
nian, which is supposed to represent this ver- 
sion. The " Peshito " Syriac, however, is very 
early, certainly earlier than the fourth century, 
and therefore earlier than any existing Greek 
manuscripts. Other Syriac translations are the 
" Philoxenian " (a. d. 508), the "Harklean" 
(a revision of the last, A. D. 616), and the 
" Jerusalem-Syriac." 

The Egyptian versions, called respectively the 
Sahidic (or Thebaic) and the Coptic (or Mem- 
phitic), belong to the second and third centuries, 
and are of considerable value, although needing 
further critical labor. The Gothic version of 
Ulphilas is certainly of the fourth century, and 
the Ethiopic of that or the following century. 
The Armenian belongs to the middle of the fifth 
century. 

All these versions are used in the determina- 
tion of the text, but reference must be made to 
special works and to the introductions and dic- 
tionaries for a fuller account of them. 

The next source for the determination of the 
text is in the abundant Patristic quotations from 
the New Testament. This evidence is seriously 
lessened in value by the habit of the scribes, in 
copying the writings of the Fathers, to correct 
the passages of Scripture met with so as to bring 
them into conformity with the text current in 



136 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

their own time. Hence it becomes necessary, 
first, to ascertain what was really the original 
reading of any of these ancient authors before 
it can be used as an authority. Besides this, 
they frequently quoted loosely, not verbatim, 
but giving the sense in their own words. It 
frequently happens, however, that they quote ex- 
joressly, that is, they notice a difference of ex- 
pression between parallel places in the Gospels, 
or a variation between the manuscripts of their 
day, and comment upon it. In such cases their 
opinion is of the highest value, particularly in 
the case of Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, who 
were all eminent scholars and gave abundant 
labor to the criticism of the text. 

By these three means, manuscripts, versions, 
and Patristic quotations, the text is determined. 
Certain canons of criticism have been put forth 
by which the external evidence thus furnished 
is to be weighed, and certain other canons in 
regard to the value of internal evidence, of which, 
also, due account requires to be taken. Under 
this system there is a quite general agreement 
as to the true text among critical scholars, al- 
though many unimportant, and a very few im- 
portant variations are still to be found in their 
editions. The work of criticising the text is far 
from being mechanical, and requires at once 
scholarship, experience, and sagacity ; its results 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 137 

are generally reliable, and it is the part of the 
interpreter generally to accept them as the basis 
of his exegesis ; but sometimes, when the critics 
differ, or when authorities are closely balanced, 
he must exercise his own judgment, and needs to 
have a fair knowledge of the principles of textual 
criticism, that he may exercise it intelligently. 

The subject is discussed in the prolegomena 
of the various critical editions of the Greek 
New Testament, in articles in introductions and 
Bible dictionaries, especially in that of Smith 
in the American edition. There are also special 
works on the subject, among which may be men- 
tioned that of F. H. Scrivener, " A Plain Intro- 
duction to the Criticism of the New Testament," 
in its second and much improved edition, and 
the smaller works of C. E. Hammond, " Outlines 
of Textual Criticism applied to the New Testa- 
ment," and " The Principles of Textual Criti- 
cism " by the author, originally published in the 
" Bibliotheca Sacra " for April, 1875, but sub- 
sequently thoroughly revised and issued both 
separately and as an appendix to his " Greek 
Harmony of the Gospels." 

II. Textual Criticism of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

We are here upon very different ground ; the 
text itself is far more ancient than in the case 



133 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

of the New Testament, and the data for its criti- 
cism are far more modern both absolutely and 
relatively. There are but few manuscripts older 
than the twelfth century of our era. Of these 
few none go back to an earlier date than the 
ninth century, unless it be one of the Pentateuch 
brought from Derbend in Daghestan to Odessa, 
which purports, by its subscription, to have been 
written before A. D. 580. Manuscripts of the 
Old Testament, therefore, only help us to ascer- 
tain what is known as the Masoretic text, and do 
not directly indicate what may have been its ear- 
lier condition. The principal authorities for the 
readings of the MSS. are the works of Kenni- 
cott 1 and De Rossi. 2 The various readings of 
both works were condensed and printed in a 
new edition of the Hebrew Bible by Reineccius, 
published by D. I. C. Doederlein and J. H. 
Meisner, Leipsic, 1793, reprinted at Halle, 
1818. The more important readings of Ken- 
nicott and De Rossi, together with a collation 
of the readings of the Samaritan, Septuagint, 
Chaldee, Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic, and 
other critical material may be found in the valu- 
able edition of the Hebrew Bible by the learned 

1 Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum variis lectionibus, two 
vols., fol., Oxon., 1770-80. 

2 Varice lectiones Veteris Testamenti, four vols., 4to, Parmae, 

1784-87. 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 139 

Boothroyd, in two vols. 4to, Pontefract, 1810- 
1816. More recently, important work has been 
undertaken by Baer and Delitzsch, availing 
themselves of all the facilities and scholarship of 
the day. They have already published critical 
editions of Genesis, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and 
Isaiah, the Minor Prophets, Daniel, Ezra and 
Nehemiah, Ezekiel, Chronicles, and the five 
Megilloth. 

The compilation of the Masora is said to have 
begun in the sixth or seventh century, and to 
have extended to the tenth or eleventh. The 
Masora is a collection of observations and of 
oral traditions concerning the text. It is con- 
cerned with a small number of various readings 
then known to exist, with an enumeration of 
the numbers of verses, words, and letters, and 
observations about them, and especially with the 
vocalization and accentuation of the text. While 
these matters often determine the sense of the 
text in detail, they do not touch at all upon 
larger corruptions which are known certainly to 
have existed then, and which continue to the 
present time. 

Earlier than the Masora is the Talmud. This 
is composed essentially of two parts, the Mishna, 
or text, compiled by R. Judah, the holy, who died 
about A. D. 220, and the Gemara, or commentary 
in its twofold form, the Jerusalem, belonging to 



140 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

the close of the fourth century, and the Baby- 
lonian, about a century later. The Talmud, like 
the Masora, notices a few emendations required 
in the text, but is chiefly valuable as attesting 
the scrupulous care with which the text at the 
time was guarded. It will be seen from these 
statements how very little there remains of data 
for the direct criticism of the text. 

Turning next to versions, we have those al- 
ready mentioned in the chapter on the original 
languages. The oldest of these is the Samari- 
tan, but it extends only through the Pentateuch, 
and is separated from its original by 1,000 
years. It is of some value as a witness to the 
text of the Pentateuch at the time of the trans- 
lation, but of course can throw no light upon the 
corruptions of the previous millennium, and the 
independent accuracy of our present copies 
needs further critical examination. The various 
readings of the Samaritan text were carefully 
examined by Gesenius in 1815, and his conclu- 
sions, depriving these variations of any consider- 
able weight, have been generally sustained by 
scholars since that time. The Samaritan Penta- 
teuch (both the text and the version) is printed 
in the Samaritan character in the Paris Poly- 
glot and in that of Walton, and also sepa- 
rately in C ha Idee characters, edited by Blayney 
(Oxon., 1790). Its readings, as already noted, 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 141 

may be found in Boothroyd's Hebrew Bible, and 
also in a series of articles in the " Bibliotheca 
Sacra." l 

Next to this chronologically, but of more 
importance both critically and exegetically, is 
the Septuagint. This translation was the work 
of the Jews of Alexandria, and was at least 
begun in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 
about B. c. 280. It is uncertain whether more 
than the Pentateuch was at first translated, but 
it is clear that the translation of this is much 
better than of the later books. The version gives 
internal evidence of having been prepared from 
a Hebrew text without vowel points or division 
between the words. Where, therefore, it gives 
sufficient evidence of fidelity it may represent 
an earlier tradition in regard to the vocalization 
than has been preserved in the Masoretic text, 
and thus becomes an important authority, par- 
ticularly in cases where there are conflicting 
readings in the present Hebrew MSS. The 
same thing may also be said in some cases in 
regard to the interchange of similar Hebrew let- 
ters and even of the transposition of letters. 
Noted instances of this are in Psalm xxii. 17 
(LXX. xxi. 16) where the printed Hebrew is 
'HSD; but several MSS. read vnSD, and the LXX. 
has &pv£ av xupas /jLov kolI 7ro§as julov, and Aquila, too, 

1 Bibliotheca Sacra, xxxiii., 265, 533 ; xxxiv., 79 ; xxxv., 76, 309. 



142 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

(although with a variety in the MSS.) reads 
^crxwai/. In Psalm xvi. 10 " the printed text 
is -pTDn in the plural ; but near 269 MSS. (or 
more than half of the whole known number) have 
the singular -j~TOn, which is clearly confirmed 
by the evidence of the Septuagint, ovSe Soxras t6v 
oo-lov (tov ISeiv 8ia<f)6opdv" This reading is con- 
firmed by all the ancient versions as well as by 
Acts ii. 27, xiii. 35. It is to be remembered, 
however, that the Septuagint has often varied 
from the Hebrew intentionally, as in the change 
from the seventh day to the sixth in Gen. ii. 
2 ; and also that, since it was for a long time 
the version of the Old Testament in common 
use among Christians, and publicly read in the 
churches, its text has been corrected in some 
instances from the New Testament, as, e. g., in 
Psalms xiv. (LXX. xiii.) altered to conform 
to the quotation in Rom. iii. 10-18, which is 
really a combination of quotations from Psalms 
xiv. and liii. (LXX. Iii.). A thoroughly critical 
edition of the Septuagint is still a desideratum. 
Besides the Complutensian (contained in the 
Antwerp and Paris Polyglots) and the Aldine 
editions, there are two principal recensions of 
the text of the Septuagint : the Vatican, w r hich 
is published in Walton's Polyglot and followed 
in most modern editions, was accurately edited 
by Bos, with various readings and other critical 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 143 

apparatus, in two vols., 4to, 1709 ; and the Alex- 
andrine, carefully edited by Grabe and subse- 
quently republished with the variations of the 
Vatican and of three MSS. at Basle, and crit- 
ical dissertations, by Breitinger, four vols., 4to, 
1730. The most convenient and accessible mod- 
ern edition is the last one of Tischendorf , in two 
vols., 8vo, 1856. It follows the Vatican text, 
but gives the various readings of the Alexan- 
drine, and other critical matter, and, especially, 
it gives in an appendix the Septuagint version 
of Daniel, in addition to that of Theodotion, 
which in that book, has commonly supplanted it. 
More recent and of great value is Field's edi- 
tion of what has been recovered of Origen's 
Hexapla. 1 

What is known of the other Greek versions 
of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion may be 
found in this work of Field's. Although these 
versions were all subsequent to the Christian era, 
they are yet much more ancient than the present 
Masoretic text. 

Next in order among the versions are to be 
placed the Chaldee Targums or paraphrases. 
After the return of the Jews from the Babylo- 
nian captivity, although at precisely what time is 
uncertain, the Hebrew had become a dead lan- 

1 Origenis Hexaplorum quce super sunt F. Field. 2 vols., 
4to, Oxon.. 1875. 



144 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

guage to such a degree that it was found desir- 
able to have the Scriptures interpreted in Chal- 
dee, as they were read in the original in the 
synagogues. These more or less paraphrastic 
translations were, for a long time, not allowed 
to be committed to writing, but were handed 
down by oral tradition. The Targumists them- 
selves were held in little esteem, and their in- 
terpretations were considered in their own time 
as of no scholarly value. They often deviate 
intentionally from the text for purposes of ex- 
planation, and are therefore of more value as 
witnesses to the ancient interpretation than of 
the ancient text. Nevertheless, with careful 
and judicious use, they are not without value 
in the criticism of the text, since they probably 
began to be committed to writing before the 
close of the second century, although the oldest 
of them, in its present form, is perhaps a cen- 
tury and a half later. The most important are 
known as those of Onkdos on the Pentateuch 
(by far the most literal), of Jonathan Ben Uz- 
ziel, and the Jerusalem Targum, also on the 
Pentateuch; of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the 
Prophets, and of Joseph the Blind on the Ilagi- 
ographa. A full account of these by Emanuel 
Deutsch may be found in Smithle " Bible Dic- 
tionary," art. Versions. 

The translations thus far mentioned all stand 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 145 

much in need of critical labor upon their own 
text. When they shall have been edited with 
the same care as the Latin versions they will 
become of far more value in the criticism of the 
Hebrew text than they are at present ; meantime 
they are to be used only with extreme caution. 

The remaining versions have already been 
spoken of under the head of the New Testa- 
ment, and there is need only to mention peculi- 
arities of them in regard to the Old Testament. 

The Vetus Latina exists only in fragments ; 
Jerome revised it by comparison with the Sep- 
tuagint, and of this revision only the books of 
Job and of Psalms have come down to us. 
Afterwards, he made a new translation of the 
whole Old Testament directly from the Hebrew, 
the work occupying fourteen years and being, in 
some of the books, particularly those of Samuel 
and Malachi, made with great care and with 
repeated revisions, while others, as the three 
books ascribed to Solomon, were hastily exe- 
cuted. Fortunately, he has preserved in his 
prefaces to the several books an account of the 
care bestowed upon them, and his work becomes 
a most important testimony to the Hebrew text 
as it existed at the close of the fifth century. 
The distinction between Jerome's work on the 
Old and the New Testaments is to be borne in 
mind, — that while the latter was a revision, the 
former was a new translation. 



146 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

The so-called JPeshito Syriac was made (with 
the possible exception of the Psalms) directly 
from the Hebrew at a far earlier date. It 
appears to have been already ancient in the time 
of Ephrem Syrus in the fourth century and is 
generally supposed to have closely followed the 
first promulgation of Christianity among a Syr- 
iac-speaking people. It probably belongs to the 
second century. It is printed in the Paris and 
London Polyglots, and an edition, prepared by 
Professor Lee from a collation of MSS. (with- 
out, however, giving the authorities) was pub- 
lished by the British and Foreign Bible Society 
at London, 1823. Since then a considerable 
amount of critical material has been accumu- 
lated by Dr. Cureton, but still awaits publica- 
tion. The value of this version is great on ac- 
count of its antiquity, of the general good state 
of its text, and of its being in a cognate dialect. 
There is also a later version called the Syro- 
Hexaplar, made from the Hexaplar Greek text. 

The Armenian and Coptic versions of the Old 
Testament were made from the Septuagint. 

It is thus seen that the apparatus criticus for 
the criticism of the text of the Old Testament is 
both meagre and modern as compared with that 
available in the New. A resort, therefore, to 
conjectural criticism is justified in the former 



TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 147 

case to an extent which would not be allowable 
in the latter. Yet even here it requires to be 
used with the utmost caution and only in cases 
where the text, as it stands, is in manifest error, 
and where probable evidence for its correction 
may be drawn from the Scriptures themselves 
or other undoubted authority. For example : 
in 1 Chr. vi. 28 (in the Hebrew, verse 13) we 
read in the A. V., " The sons of Samuel ; the 
firstborn Vashni, and Abiah." Correctly trans- 
lated this would read, " The sons of Samuel ; 
the firstborn and the second Abiah ; " it is plain 
that a name has here dropped out of the text 
which may be supplied by turning to 1 Sam. viii. 
2, where we read, " The name of the firstborn 
was Joel ; and the name of the second, Abiah." 
In 1 Sam. xiii. 1 it is said, " Saul reigned one 
year ; and when he had reigned two years over 
Israel, Saul chose," etc. Even the English 
translation is suggestive of something faulty in 
the text ; but the Hebrew, rendered according 
to the analogy of all other similar statements, 
reads, " Saul was year old when he began to 
reign, and he reigned two years over Israel." 
The numerals representing Saul's age at the 
commencement of his reign, and the number for 
the tens in the length of his reign have evi- 
dently dropped out of the text, and we have no 
certain data for supplying them. If both these 



148 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

numbers should be conjectured to be thirty, it 
would agree well with the general history of 
Saul as to his age at his accession and would 
make his whole reign thirty-two years. The lat- 
ter term, added to the seven and a half years in 
which the Israelites adhered to the house of 
Saul before recognizing David, would also agree 
with the forty years assigned to Saul before 
David became king, in Acts xiii. 21. But it is 
far easier in such cases to detect the error than 
to correct it with certainty. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS OF THE IN- 
* TERPRETER. 

The preparation of the interpreter in regard 
to knowledge having been set forth in the pre- 
vious chapters, it is still necessary to say some- 
thing of the preparation requisite in regard to 
his own mental condition. This cannot, indeed, 
be altogether separated from his religious prepa- 
ration already spoken of in Chapter VII. ; it is, 
nevertheless, a distinct point, and consists so 
largely in habits of mind which can be formed 
and controlled, that it demands at least a brief 
treatment as essential to the success of the exe- 
gete. The subject naturally falls into several 
parts, of which may be placed first, 

I. Willingness to take Trouble. 

This is essential to all serious and worthy ac- 
quisition in everything ; conscientious and pains- 
taking labor is the necessary condition of all 
work of real value to ourselves or others, but 
it needs here to be especially insisted upon. It 
is exceedingly easy, on the one side, to take 



150 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

interpretations at second hand, and to fall into a 
system devised by others, without serious exam- 
ination as to whether it is true or not ; and on 
the other side, to dash off, without system, into 
whatever interpretations may strike the fancy 
at the moment, or may happen to fall in with 
preconceived notions. Hence, it seems to many 
lost labor to spend time and thought and prayer, 
either on the elaboration of general principles of 
interpretation which shall guide us in particular 
cases, or, when those particular cases arise, to 
consider whether our interpretation is in accord- 
ance with such principles as have been already 
established. Has it not been already pointed 
out, it may be asked, that the humble and devout 
Christian will often reach a more true and just 
interpretation of the essential teaching of Scrip- 
ture than one who approaches it in a wrong 
spirit, although fortified with all the learning 
dwelt upon in the preceding pages? This is 
very true ; but, on the one hand, it is to be re- 
membered that such a person not only comes 
to the Scriptures with deep and usually long 
preparation in the most important point of all, 
— the spiritual preparation of the heart ; and 
on the other, that such persons usually confine 
themselves in their interpretations to the broad 
features and the essential teachings of Scripture, 
and that, when they have presumed to go beyond 



PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS. 151 

this, and interpret passages of difficulty, they 
have not infrequently furnished as sad instances 
as the world has ever seen of strange distortions 
of the truth. But again, another may say : Such 
or such a commentator was far more learned 
than I can ever hope to be ; why am I not safer 
and more likely to be right in taking his opin- 
ions and following them throughout, than in at- 
tempting to find out the meaning of the Scrip- 
tures for myself? Such an inquiry may be 
readily answered by simply putting into the 
hands of the inquirer another commentary, pro- 
ceeding from a person of a different school of 
thought, and pointing out to him the total di- 
vergence between them in their whole treatment 
of the word of God. Which of them shall he 
follow ? Whichever he chooses, he can be him- 
self but a partisan, a man whose thoughts and 
opinions are not his own, incompetent of forming 
an independent interpretation, and who cannot 
even have an opinion at all until he has as- 
certained, directly or indirectly, what his self- 
adopted master would have him think. If any 
reader is content to occupy such a position, he 
may as well lay aside this or any other aid in 
the acquisition of truth ; they are not meant for 
those who are willing to think only the thoughts 
of others. But still a third person may say : 
With such a fair general knowledge of Scrip- 



152 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

ture as any habitual reader of it may be sup- 
posed to possess, and with such aid as one may 
easily obtain from an occasional reference to 
one or two good commentaries, why can I not 
interpret the Bible sufficiently well for all prac- 
tical purposes, except, possibly, in a few passages 
of special difficulty, which in any event it would 
be wiser for me to let alone ? Certainly, a large 
part of mankind must be content to rely on 
their general knowledge of the Scriptures, with 
such aid as they can find in one or two good 
commentaries, and, on the whole, they are thus 
able to explain the Scriptures sufficiently for 
the common purposes of life with good and use- 
ful effect. But this is not to be an exegete : let 
such an one have added to the preparation de- 
scribed a knowledge of Greek, and every one 
can see how greatly his power of understanding 
the New Testament will be increased. For ex- 
ample, it is impossible for one to learn at second 
hand the precise use and meaning of the word 
SiKOLioavi >t) as used in the Epistle to the Romans ; 
and without a clear conception of the exact force 
of that pivotal word, it is equally impossible for 
him fully to appreciate the masterly argument 
of that epistle. The same thing may be said in 
its degree of the knowledge of Hebrew, of the 
knowledge of history, of the knowledge of geog- 
raphy, of natural science, and of all the other 



PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS. 153 

matters touched upon in the previous pages. 
And more than this : exegesis is an art requiring 
special study, and he who neglects this study can 
never know whether his interpretation of a par- 
ticular passage is based either upon right prin- 
ciples or upon a right application of them. In 
general, in answer to all these attempts to reach 
a knowledge of the meaning of the word of God 
by any short and easy method, it may be replied, 
that while there is nothing of which an accurate 
and true knowledge can be acquired without 
trouble, it is least of all possible in regard to 
that book in which the Infinite and the finite 
meet together, and the Almighty instructs man 
concerning His will and His truth. Such ac- 
curate knowledge may not be always necessary 
for practical purposes ; but without it one who 
undertakes to expound the word of truth is al- 
ways walking upon uncertain ground, not know- 
ing even where the danger lies, and is liable 
when he least thinks it to be found in error. 
And this trouble must be taken personally ; it 
will not suffice to rely upon others. 

This, then, is the first essential in the mental 
attitude of the exegete : he must be willing to 
take trouble, first, in preparing himself for his 
work generally, and then in the careful examina- 
tion of each passage which he undertakes to in- 
terpret. What an amount of trashy morality 



154 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

has been thrust upon the world from simply not 
observing that the meaning of iyKpareca is self- 
control rather than temperance in the ordinary 
modern acceptation of that word. What touch- 
ing force is added to the threefold questioning 
and answer of St. Peter (John xxi. 15-17) by 
the varying use of the words dyaTracu and </>tAe'a), 
the distinction between which we cannot express 
in English. In Luke xxiii. 15, how much clearer 
is the true text, " No, nor yet Herod, for he sent 
Him back to us," than that followed in the 
A. V., " For I sent you to him." These are but 
instances of a thousand passages, many of them 
of importance, in which the true sense yields 
only to careful examination. The question of 
our Lord's journeying beyond the boundaries of 
Palestine turns upon the authenticity of a prep- 
osition in Mark vii. 31 ; that of the whole length 
of His ministry on earth, chiefly upon the deter- 
mination of what feast is intended in John v. 1. 



II. A Judicial State of Mind. 

Besides taking trouble to ascertain the mean- 
ing of his text, the exegete must cultivate that 
impartial, well-balanced, and judicial habit of 
mind which can alone enable him to come to 
correct conclusions from his evidence when he 
has it before him. It is notorious that every one 



PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS. 155 

who goes to the Scriptures with a preconceived 
view or system in his mind, is sure to find that 
view confirmed, however contradictory these 
views may be in the case of different individuals. 
This fairness of mind is not an easy acquisition 
to most persons ; for it is in opposition to all 
prejudice and partisanship. It requires a study 
of the Scriptures for the sole purpose of ascer- 
taining what they have to say, without regard 
either to what we suppose they will say, or to 
what we wish that they might say. The inser- 
tion of the " if " in the English translation of 
Heb. vi. 6, and x. 26, if it be understood, as is 
often done, to imply a doubt of the possibility 
of the condition described, may serve to show 
how extremely difficult it is, even for men of 
most honest intentions, to avoid being warped in 
their interpretations by theological views already 
adopted. Of course the mind of an intelligent 
man cannot be a mere blank, and when he comes 
to the systematic study of the Divine word he 
will have many opinions already formed ; but if 
he keeps before himself the importance of the 
state of mind now insisted upon, and tries habit- 
ually and honestly to learn what Scripture 
teaches of itself and not what he can make it 
teach, these opinions, in so far as they may 
chance to be erroneous, will gradually be cor- 
rected : and, in so far as they are just, will find 



156 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

a sure foundation on which to rest. Convictions, 
perhaps deeply cherished, may thus come to be 
changed ; but, as he must always prefer the 
Divine will to' his own, so he must prefer the 
fair sense of the Divine word to his own opinion. 
Perfect honesty thus becomes an essential qual- 
ification of the interpreter, and he can never al- 
low himself to " handle the word of God deceit- 
fully " for the sake of removing difficulties or 
for any other object. What is really God's 
word must be true ; and if the ark seem to totter, 
it cannot be stayed by the hand of human cas- 
uistry. It is not honest to slur over difficulties, 
or to attempt to hide them in a mere cloud of 
words. It is a pitiable exhibition when a modeiM 
commentator attempts to explain the discrep- 
ancies between Ezra ii. and Neh. vii., in the 
census of the returning captives, by saying, that 
if we omit in Ezra all the numbers in excess of 
those in Nehemiah, and then in Nehemiah all 
those in excess of Ezra, and add the residues, 
we shall have identical results ! On the other 
hand, it is as unworthy to reject all reasonable 
solution of difficulties, lest one should by any 
means fall into untrustworthy conventionalities. 
The danger is considerable on either side ; only 
by a judicial fairness can both be avoided. 



PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS. 157 

III. Common Sense and Sagacity. 
" Common sense " is the art of applying to 
our own opinions or actions the verdict of the 
common intelligence of mankind. As it is one 
of the rarest, so it is one of the most important 
of the personal qualifications of the interpreter. 
The judicial habit of mind, spoken of in the last 
section, will go far towards securing the exercise 
of common sense in interpretation ; yet some- 
thing more is needed. One may be fair in his 
judgment without sufficient breadth of view to 
take in all the elements which ought to affect his 
decision. " Common sense " or " sagacity " in 
interpretation requires a ready appreciation of 
everything which ought to be considered, as well 
as a fair proportioning of influence to each of 
them. It is a rare, but most important, qualifi- 
cation of the good exegete, and its attainment is 
to be diligently sought. The means of gaining 
it are the same as those by which a sound judg- 
ment is cultivated in any other pursuit. Men 
differ in the degree in which they possess it, not 
so much by reason of difference in the original 
capacities of their minds as in the habits of 
thought to which they have accustomed them- 
selves, and the power of self-control they have 
trained themselves to exercise. Particularly op- 
posed to this excellence is the mistaken effort at 



158 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

originality. True originality, here as in natural 
science, consists not in the finding of something 
absolutely new, but in drawing attention to facts 
not heretofore observed or not sufficiently re- 
garded, and combining those facts naturally and 
truly but in combinations heretofore overlooked. 
For such originality there is ample room in the 
constant advance of knowledge in every depart- 
ment. It was a truly original interpretation of 
Matt. xxi. 2, when a traveler in Palestine ob- 
served that the Mount of Olives at the place in 
question is furrowed by a valley, and that, while 
the main road follows round its head, there is a 
short cut by a footpath across, with the remains 
of a vili ige at the junction of the two ways on 
the opposite side. When, therefore, our Lord 
told his disciples, " Go into the village over 
against you," He directed them to take the foot- 
path across the valley, and then finding the ass, 
to bring it along the main road to meet Him. 
But a is an utterly false and mischievous origi- 
nality which either takes a passage out of its 
connection and fastens upon it some unheard-of 
meaning, as is often done by the extreme school 
of typologists ; or which presupposes some fan- 
ciful theory, as that of the opposing theology of 
Peter and Paul, and then forces the sense of 
Scripture to its support. True originality, here 
as elsewhere, is the result not of an exuberant 



PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS. 159 

fancy, but of hard and intelligent work, and of 
this originality common sense must be the test. 
That which is original in the right sense in in- 
terpretation, as everywhere, must be, like the 
egg of Columbus, something which, once pointed 
out, can be seen and approved by every man 
possessed of the necessary data for forming an 
opinion. The sagacity by which a great general 
wins a battle is not usually displayed in new 
devices, but in so grasping the whole circum- 
stances of the situation, and so disposing his 
forces in view of them, that, when the struggle is 
over, every one can see that the battle must have 
been won. Correspondingly, the difficulties of 
the exegeter are to be overcome, not so much by 
an exercise of ingenuity, as by so bringing cir- 
cumstances and facts and context to bear upon 
the exact language of the text that the difficulty, 
as it were, resolves itself. This is the height of 
exegetical sagacity, and is the outcome of a full 
preparation for the work, of painstaking labor, 
and of a judicial attitude of mind under the 
guidance of common sense. 

IV. Eeverence. 
Finally, with all these qualifications, it is nec- 
essary that the interpreter should approach his 
work and should carry it on at every stage with 
reverence. Of course this is a necessary result 



160 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

from the nature of the material, the inspired 
word of God, on which the exegete is expected 
to work ; but the proposition needs to be con- 
sidered, both to show its use, and to guard 
against its abuse. The character of the Bible, 
as the revelation of God, requires that its inter- 
pretation should be undertaken with a distinct 
consciousness and continual recollection of this 
fact ; in other words, that we here stand in the 
presence of the teachings of the Infinite. This 
not only gives seriousness and importance to the 
work, but also furnishes the clue to the solution 
of some otherwise insoluble difficulties. Refer- 
ence must be again made to the Introduction to 
show how essentially this fact modifies the whole 
of Scripture. But, aside from this, we find every- 
where that reverence is one of the most positive 
requirements of the Supreme Being, and, there- 
fore, without this we are not likely to interpret 
His word acceptably to Him. When the prophet 
was sent to declare an important message from 
on high, he saw in vision the Almighty seated 
upon a throne with the seraphim standing be- 
fore Him. They had each six wings, but used 
two of them to veil their faces and two to veil 
their feet in expression of their reverence, leav- 
ing only one third of their powers to be em- 
ployed in the active execution of their Maker's 
commands (Isa. vi. 1, 2). For us it may not be 



PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS. 161 

necessary to hold in abeyance anything of the 
power given ; but it is necessary that all should 
be employed with the same sense of the profound 
holiness and truth and love of Him whose word 
we seek to interpret. While thus saved from 
many a false interpretation, we shall be led to 
look for and to find a depth and fullness of 
meaning which might otherwise be overlooked. 

On the other hand, nothing can be more fool- 
ish than to attempt to find deep mysteries in the 
simplest historical events and profound types in 
the necessary accessories of the Divine com- 
mands. Such trifling with the Divine word, 
common enough from the days of Clement of 
Alexandria to our own, is not reverential, but 
irrational ; and the Divine requirement is ever 
that our service must be a reasonable service. 
In the work of the interpreter, dogmatism often 
seeks to screen itself under the cloak of rever- 
ence. Centuries ago the attempt to determine 
the true character of the New Testament dialect 
was stoutly resisted as irreverent ; a generation 
ago the same ground was taken — and is not yet 
wholly given up — against every effort to restore 
as far as possible the original words of Holy 
Writ by the application of textual criticism. In 
the more especial department of exegesis, his- 
tory shows many a shallow interpreter seeking 
to hide his ignorance of the real meaning of the 



162 PREPARATION FOR INTERPRETING. 

sacred record under the mask of reverence, while 
on the other hand, examples are not wanting of 
a true reverence denounced as superstition. The 
difficulty presses with peculiar force in the re- 
gion where exegesis blends with doctrinal theol- 
ogy. Here true reverence can never be content 
that a doctrine should rest upon a false support ; 
yet, if a conventional proof text is shown by a 
careful exegesis to have no relation to the doc- 
trine in question, a cry is sure to be raised that 
the doctrine itself is attacked and must be de- 
fended from the rash hands irreverently laid 
upon it. Reverence for a merely human past is 
often mistaken for reverence for God's word, 
and a change in an interpretation, necessitated 
by the advance in philology and in all know- 
ledge, is too apt to be regarded as a proposal to 
change the Scripture itself. 

Nevertheless, true reverence must show itself 
in the honest and manly effort to ascertain what 
is the meaning which the Holy Spirit meant 
to convey through the language of the Scripture 
writer. Whoever does this, may be assured if 
he goes on, under an abiding sense of the great 
realities with which he has to do, that his effort 
is well pleasing to the Majesty on high, and, in 
so far as it is true to its purpose, will endure to 
His glory. 



PART II. 

THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 



CHAPTER XI. 

PRELIMINARY. 

We have now to consider the actual work of 
the interpreter in ascertaining the meaning of 
the Bible. It is not to be supposed that, prac- 
tically, his preparation and his work can be 
separated as they have been in the discussion 
of them. Life does not suffice for the attain- 
ment of a theoretically perfect preparation ; the 
exegete must enter upon his work with such 
preparation as he has been able to attain, and 
his difficulties will soon suggest the importance 
of improving to the utmost his qualifications as 
he has opportunity. He should beware of so 
committing himself to his interpretations that 
their modification shall become difficult when, in 
the light of a fuller preparation, he may be able 
to see their erroneousness. He should rather 
begin the practice of exegesis tentatively, re- 



164 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

cording his results with the reasons for them as 
a matter of self-education, that from these es- 
says, when they happen to prove unsuccessful, 
he may afterwards see the errors he is to avoid 
and the means by which he was led to commit 
them ; and when, in the light of farther know- 
ledge and skill in practice, they prove success- 
ful, they may become an encouragement and 
help to farther progress. When he shall find, 
after some years of growing preparation, that his 
general system of interpretation still commends 
itself to his own mind, and that in particular 
cases, in which no new facts have come to his 
attention, his views are still satisfactory, he may 
fairly conclude that he has entered upon the 
right road, and that henceforth his skill in in- 
terpretation will be proportioned to his practice 
and his information and to his care in bringing 
these to bear upon the subject before him. 

In the following chapters the same general 
order will be observed as in those w T hich have 
gone before, i. e., the principle will be, to begin 
with the general and advance to the special. 
This is the reverse of the course usually pursued 
in works on hermeneutics, and is made possible 
by having already considered the required prepa- 
ration of the exegete. If one were to undertake 
the interpretation of a particular passage with- 
out any knowledge of the subject, it would be 



PBELIMINAR Y. 1 65 

necessary for him to build up a knowledge piece- 
meal, beginning of course with the most elemen- 
tary details ; he would be obliged first to deter- 
mine the text, and then to make himself familiar 
with the meaning of the words and the structure 
of the language, and thence go on step by step 
to wider considerations of context, etc. But the 
interpreter who comes to his work with full 
preparation is in a different position, and is 
able to take it up in whatever may be really the 
best way. In deciding upon what is that best 
way, regard must be had to the universal law of 
nature which puts the general before the special, 
and marks all progress as a course of successive 
specializations. The tyro in natural history must 
first study his many individual specimens and 
group them successively into species, genera, 
families, etc., following the ascending order, and 
this is of necessity the general rule for the ac- 
quisition of knowledge ; but the knowledge hav- 
ing once been acquired and thoroughly incorpo- 
rated into the treasures of the mind, the reverse 
order is to be followed, often more or less un- 
consciously. The well instructed naturalist, on 
taking in hand a new object, observes at a glance 
to which kingdom of nature it belongs, and to 
which order and family, and afterwards more 
carefully examines its generic and specific char- 
acteristics, following the historic order. In the 



166 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

same way the chemist must in his studies first 
acquire a knowledge of the properties of bodies ; 
but when he is prepared for an analysis, he 
begins his work by observing certain character- 
istic reactions which determine to which of sev- 
eral groups of substances the body in question 
belongs, and then identifies it successively as a 
member of smaller and smaller groups until he 
brings it down at last to its own characteristic 
reactions. The same is true of every other 
branch of natural study ; and a like course is to 
be followed in exegesis : first, acquire the neces- 
sary knowledge by building up from details, and 
then in applying that knowledge, reverse the 
order, and proceed from the more general to the 
more special. This more general knowledge, as 
in the case of the student of natural history, will 
very often be unconsciously applied ; at what- 
ever stage, however, the process is consciously 
taken up, the student must begin with the more 
general of the considerations which are to be 
taken into account. As in reading a letter in 
an obscure handwriting, we first aim to obtain a 
knowledge of the general drift, and then of the 
particular sentence as an aid in determining a 
difficult word ; so in exegesis, we ascertain the 
general purpose of the writer, the scope of the 
context, the grammatical structure, before we 
determine the exact shade of meaning of a par- 
ticular word. 



PRELIMINARY. 167 

It is not to be denied that there is a certain 
danger in this method against which the student 
requires to be absolutely on his guard. He 
must beware of making up his mind before- 
hand, from general considerations, what the text 
ought to say. In this respect, as in every other, 
he must bring to his interpretation an unpreju- 
diced mind, seeking only to know what the text 
does say, and not what he would wish it to say. 
The illustrations which will be given in the 
following chapters will sufficiently show how 
the more general should be brought to bear 
upon the more special. It is never to determine 
the meaning beforehand, but only to enable us 
rightly to decide between different interpreta- 
tions which the words alone might possibly bear ; 
to ascertain the circumstances under which they 
were written ; the general purpose of the writ- 
er's mind ; and, in a word, to put ourselves as 
much as possible in the writer's position and un- 
derstand his words as he intended to use them. 

This danger, however, is believed to be far 
less than that attending the opposite course, 
where the tendency, as shown by experience as 
well as by theory, is to exaggerate the impor- 
tance of minutiae, and, between different possible 
meanings, to adopt that which seems in the de- 
tail as perhaps slightly the more probable, with 
such tenacity as to render the interpreter blind 
to more important considerations. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE APPLICATION OF THE GENERAL KNOW- 
LEDGE OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

Here, as throughout this part of the work, 
the principles to be observed can best be con- 
veyed by means of examples. Let us suppose 
the exegete proceeding to interpret some point 
on which a difference of opinion has existed, and 
on which he wishes to arrive at a satisfactory 
conclusion, based on sufficient evidence. We 
are to consider here only examples which de- 
pend for their solution upon a general know- 
ledge of the Scriptures. 

Let us take, as a first illustration, the number 
of the Israelites at their exodus from Egypt. 
This is stated in Ex. xii. 37 at GOO, 000 men, 
giving, according to the ordinary proportion, 
somewhere about 2,500,000 as the whole num- 
ber of the Israelites at this time. But this num- 
ber involves certain obvious difficulties. The 
total number of Jacob's family who went down 
into Egypt 215 years before is given in Gen. 
xlvi. 27 and Ex. i. 5 as seventy, and a natural in- 
crease in that time from the one number to the 



APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 169 

other is plainly impossible. Further, the nature 
of the country in which the " wanderings of the 
wilderness " occurred, plainly made the support 
of such a vast host for forty years impracticable 
by any natural means. On the other hand, it is 
well known that simple statements of numbers 
are especially exposed to the errors of the scribes 
in the repeated copying of MSS., and that sev- 
eral such errors do actually occur. In view of 
these facts some critics have been disposed to 
reduce the number of men to 60,000 or even to 
6,000. Whether such a reduction is allowable, 
or even possible, and also whether there is any 
real ground for suspecting error, must be deter- 
mined from a general knowledge of the whole 
history to which this particular statement be- 
longs. In the first place, the number itself is so 
repeatedly restated and checked in a variety of 
ways that it is impossible there should have 
been any merely accidental error. Within about 
a year from this time a military census was taken 
of the people by their tribes, and in Num. i. the 
result is given for each tribe separately (verses 
20-43), as well as the sum total (verse 46). In 
the following chapter an account is given of the 
separation of the whole host into four marching 
divisions, in which the number of each tribe is 
again stated, and also the whole number of each 
division (ii. 1-24), and then again the sum total 



170 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

of the whole (verse 32). Thirty-eight years later 
a similar census was again taken, and is recorded 
again for each tribe separately, and also the sum 
total (Num. xxvi. 5-51). There are, besides, a 
great many other checks upon the number, as in 
the census of the Levites, the record of the num- 
bers who fell under the various judgments, etc. 
It is plain, therefore, that the number, if not 
correct, must have been intentionally and sys- 
tematically changed. The next inquiry must be 
in regard to the number who went down into 
Egypt. This we find variously stated ; in Gen. 
xlvi. 26 as sixty-six, in the following verse as 
seventy, in Acts vii. 14 (from the Septuagint) as 
seventy-five ; on examining the list of names in 
Gen. xlvi. 8-25, it is seen at once that the num- 
ber is merely conventional, including some who 
were not born at the time referred to, and that 
it is in fact a list of the heads of the families of 
Egypt, consisting, indeed, chiefly of those who 
actually went down at that time, but also includ- 
ing others in the national annals who were con- 
sidered as entitled to like honor. This might 
have been stated at the pleasure of the writer at 
either of the figures mentioned, or at still some 
other sum not greatly divergent. It is next ob- 
served that no names of wives are mentioned, 
and hence, in a question of increase of popu- 
lation, the original seventy is to be at once 



APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 171 

doubled. Again, we read in Gen. xiv. 14, that 
Abraham had in his household 318 servants able 
to go forth to war, and that, according to the 
Divine command to him and to his posterity, all 
these were circumcised (Gen. xvii. 12-14, 27). 
The whole narrative shows that the family riches 
did not diminish in passing to Isaac and to Ja- 
cob ; and all their male servants must have been 
brought into the covenant of circumcision. When 
Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt, they 
took with them all their possessions, including 
their flocks and herds (Gen. xlvi. 5, 6 ; xlvii. 1), 
and it is certain that they must have taken their 
servants with them, both because of the need of 
them in the care of their flocks, and because they 
could not have left them behind unprovided for 
in the famine-stricken land. They were all alike 
a foreign people to the Egyptians, and must have 
been all classed together when the time of op- 
pression came on, and, having the common bond 
of circumcision, it is evident that they would 
have been regarded as Israelites by the Israel- 
ites themselves as well as by the Egyptians, and 
have been accounted to the various tribes with 
which they were connected. It is thus found 
that the number at the start was several hun- 
dred instead of merely seventy, and the increase 
presents no very remarkable phenomenon. 

Next in regard to their long march in the 



172 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

wilderness : had the number been quite small this 
would have been not only possible but altogether 
natural, as we find that corresponding numbers 
of nomadic tribes always have and do still suc- 
ceed in finding a support in the same region. 
But the whole story of the Exodus, and espe- 
cially the feeding of the people, is represented as 
impossible by natural means, and, therefore, as 
miraculous. This is not the place to discuss the 
credibility of the supernatural ; we must accept 
this in any reasonable system of Scripture inter- 
pretation. The whole story is thus self-consist- 
ent. The numbers would not have been possible 
without the miracles ; the miracles would not 
have been required without the numbers. 

Still further : the conquest of Canaan is rep- 
resented as that of a number of large, powerful, 
and warlike tribes, in possession of fortified 
cities, and to a considerable extent acting in 
alliance with one another. The conquest, as it 
was, was only accomplished by effective assist- 
ance from on high ; but to a much smaller num- 
ber it would have been absolutely impossible 
without an extent of miraculous interposition of 
which there is no record. On the whole, there- 
fore, it must be concluded that while the number 
cannot be an accidental error, it has no improb- 
ability in itself, and that some such number is 
actually required by the whole history taken to- 



gether, 



APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 173 

Let us now take an example of a different 
kind, which has already been spoken of in an- 
other connection. It is recorded in Mark ii. 
23-28, that our Lord was accused by the Phar- 
isees of a breach of the Sabbath because He al- 
lowed His disciples on that day to pluck and eat 
the ears of grain as they passed through the 
field. He defended his course by the example 
of David, who " went into the house of God in 
the days of Abiathar, the high priest, and did 
eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat 
but for the priests, and gave also to them which 
were with him." In this passage there is needed 
a general knowledge of Scripture, first, to under- 
stand accurately the ground of the accusation, 
then, to remove a difficulty, and, finally, to ap- 
preciate the peculiar appropriateness and force 
of the reply. 

For the first, there was no harm in the act of 
the disciples itself, independently of the day on 
which it was done. The law was explicit: 
" When thou comest into the standing corn of 
thy neighbor, then thou mayest pluck the ears 
with thine hand ; but thou shalt not move a 
sickle unto thy neighbor's standing corn " (Deut. 
xxiii. 25). The offense charged was only an 
offense against the sanctity of the day, and a 
careful examination of the whole Mosaic legisla- 
tion shows that no precept of the Divine law 



174 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

itself was violated, but only the current Phari- 
saical interpretation of it. For the defense of 
the disciples it was only necessary to show that 
this interpretation was unauthorized. Our Lord, 
however, wished to go farther than this, and to 
show that, even in the case of an exact and defi- 
nite precept, technicalities must give way to ne- 
cessity, and that the observance of a command- 
ment in detail must yield to the fulfillment of 
the broader purposes for which the law was 
given. He therefore selected an instance in 
which the precept was not only definite and ex- 
press, but one in which the observance mieht 
seem a necessary part of the whole symbolism . 
of the Old Testament ritual. The shewbread 
was undoubtedly offered as a part of the symbol 
of the consecration to God of all the gifts of the 
people. It was " most holy," and to be eaten 
by the priests alone as His representatives, in 
token of its acceptance and of His communion 
with His people (Lev. xxiv. 9). Nevertheless, 
no Jew of the time of Christ would have dared 
to condemn either David or Ahimelech for their 
violation of the law under the circumstances. 
Hence the argument against them was made 
conclusive by a simple appeal to this precedent. 
The difficulty in regard to the name of the 
high priest has already been treated. 1 
1 Vide p. 78. 



APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 175 

But there was a peculiar appropriateness in 
our Lord's answer which is apt to escape the 
casual reader. The shewbread was required by 
the law (Lev. xxiv. 8) to be renewed every Sab- 
bath. Now it appears from the narrative (1 Sam. 
xxi. 6) that when David came to the high priest 
this bread had just been taken away to make 
room for the hot bread that day put in its place. 
This act of justifiable violation of the letter of 
the law was, therefore, also on the Sabbath, and 
not only so, but the flight of David and his com- 
panions, by a far longer way than " a Sabbath 
day's journey," was also on that day. If the 
Pharisees chose to bear all these facts in mind, 
our Lord's reply to them must have been in- 
deed unanswerable. 

One other brief illustration may be allowed. 
In 1 Cor. x. 4, Paul says that the Israelites 
" drank of that spiritual Rock that followed 
them ; and that Rock was Christ." He is argu- 
ing the insufficiency of merely external privi- 
leges to make man acceptable to God or secure 
his salvation. He proves this by the example of 
the Israelites of old. An obvious reply might 
be made by urging the distinction in the privi- 
leges and the efficacy of the old and the new 
covenants. The Apostle meets this by showing 
that of old, as now, the one Source of spiritual 
blessing was the same, — Christ. Is this true ? 



176 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

It certainly is ; but to establish its truth nothing 
less will suffice than to take in the whole com- 
pass of Scripture teaching. It is necessary to 
show that God Himself, in His own essence, is 
unapproachable, and has never been seen of 
man ; that He is, and can be, manifested only 
through a Mediator ; that there is but one Me- 
diator, even Christ, between God and man ; and 
hence that He who manifested Himself to, and 
sustained, the Israelites in the wilderness is nec- 
essarily one with Him to whom the Christian 
looks for salvation. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

KNOWLEDGE OF THE PARTICULAR BOOK. 

Besides a general knowledge of the Bible as 
a whole, the interpreter needs a special know- 
ledge of the particular book with which he is to 
be immediately concerned. The bearing of this 
knowledge upon his interpretation varies consid- 
erably with the nature of the book, and is some- 
times of more, sometimes of less, importance ; 
but is always an element of far too great weight 
to be neglected, and is in some cases really in- 
valuable. In the historical books of Samuel, 
Kings, and Chronicles it might seem sufficient 
to be familiar with the general character of the 
histories of the time ; but it will be found nec- 
essary for the proper understanding of Chroni- 
cles to consider, also, the circumstances and needs 
of the people at the time of the return from the 
captivity, for only thus can its insertions and 
omissions, as compared with the other books, be 
explained. In the same way in the case of the 
Synoptic Gospels ; these Gospels have certain 
common characteristics which may be considered 
together, and which ought to be thoroughly 



178 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

studied ; but one may go far astray, not only in 
chronological arrangement, but also in the inter- 
pretation of particular passages, unless he take 
into account the peculiarities of each of the 
Evangelists, recognizing, e. g., Matthew's ten- 
dency to group like things together, such as the 
parables of our Lord, miracles, discourses ; and 
St. Luke's care to narrate each incident in con- 
nection with the circumstances under which it 
occurred. 

Let us select, for illustration, one book from 
the Old and one from the New Testament. Gen- 
esis is the most ancient of the former, and would 
present serious difficulties if looked upon as an 
original continuous history. It is, on the con- 
trary, a compilation from more ancient docu- 
ments, and however these have sometimes been 
woven together by the compiler, they generally 
show distinct marks of their original indepen- 
dence, especially in the more ancient parts. If, 
now, one take up the first two chapters, he will 
find in each of them an account of the creation, 
but from quite different points of view. In the 
first (ending with ii. 3), there is the story of the 
material and the animal creation, closing with 
that of man ; but the main object is evidently to 
present a general view of the cosmogony and to 
assert the ultimate origin of all things from 
God. The object of the second, while it glances 



THE PARTICULAR BOOK. 179 

at the creation in general, is plainly to describe 
the origin and status of MAN. The two accounts, 
if considered as originally independent histories 
of the creation, looked at from different points 
of view, are perfectly consistent and harmonious ; 
but regarded, as they once were, as parts of a 
continuous narrative, would present very strange 
phenomena. Along with these plain marks of 
original separation there is in each a uniform 
Divine name differing from that in the other ; 
in the first we have D^nbs some thirty times ; 
in the second D^nbs nVP eleven times. It is 
unnecessary to speak of other evidences of sepa- 
rate documents in this book ; some parts of it 
must have been originally written as early as or 
even earlier than the time of Abraham, when 
"the cities of the plain "were yet standing; 
others must have been written as late as the 
time of Jacob, and some isolated explanatory 
clauses inserted at a later date than the time of 
Moses. Some chapters must have been written 
in the locality of Egypt, others in the patri- 
archal times of the land of Canaan. The book 
can only be properly understood by keeping 
these facts constantly in view. 

Turning now to the New Testament, almost 
any of the books will serve equally well for illus- 
tration. Let us select the Epistle to the Romans. 
To interpret rightly this most important exposi- 



180 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

tion of the Christian faith it is necessary, first of 
all, to understand thoroughly the character, life, 
and spiritual experience of the great Apostle to 
the Gentiles up to the time when it was written ; 
for these enter very largely into the form in 
which the fundamental truths of Christianity 
are here presented. It is also desirable to know 
as much as may be of the disciples at Rome, 
their doctrinal needs and their experiences, as 
may be learned from a careful study of every 
mention of the names of those saluted in the last 
chapter of the epistle. Finally, it is absolutely 
necessary to have a full grasp of the great ob- 
jects had in view, and of the general plan of the 
epistle, which can only be obtained by a repeated 
careful reading over of the whole consecutively. 
If the details of this epistle had been generally 
studied with this kind of preparation, it is safe 
to say that by far the greater part of the con- 
troversies which have centred in its statements, 
if they had arisen at all, could never have sought 
support in its language. Many a bitter dispute 
about the doctrine of election would have van- 
ished by attending to the general scope of the 
epistle and the connection of the passages, used 
in this controversy, with the main argument of 
the Apostle. The long arguments on the rela- 
tive importance of faith and works would have 
found here no standing ground, had the scheme 



THE PARTICULAR BOOK. 181 

of salvation, as set forth in its totality, been prop- 
erly apprehended. The same thing may be said 
of the historic misunderstandings of the rela- 
tion of the Christian to the moral law, and of 
many other things where the most opposite views 
have sought support in the strong and earnest 
language of St. Paul. 

What is true of this epistle is true also in its 
degree of all the others. Many parts of the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews become almost enigmas as 
soon as they are considered apart from the argu- 
ment and design of the whole. While this fact 
is more apparent and more striking in what are 
called the argumentative epistles, it will not bear 
to be neglected in regard to those which are 
called practical. The interpretation of the Epis- 
tle of James particularly has grievously suffered 
from not approaching it with a broad and well 
matured view of its general purpose. 

Even in the historical books in which, from 
their character, a general thought has less op- 
portunity for development, the same principle, 
although it is not to be pressed beyond bounds, 
lies at the root of all satisfactory interpretation. 
The marked difference in tone and character 
between the Gospel of John and the Synoptic 
Gospels, is a necessary result of the declared 
purpose of the former (John xx. 31), and, when 
duly considered, brings them all into harmonious 
relations with each other. 



182 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

This, then, may be laid down confidently as the 
most important guide to the interpreter in his 
work : after acquiring a good general knowledge 
of the Bible as a whole, let him next obtain the 
most thorough knowledge possible of the par- 
ticular book which is to be the immediate sub- 
ject of interpretation. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE USE OF GEOGRAPHY. 

The use of geographical knowledge in the 
work of interpretation depends greatly upon the 
character of the book which is studied. In such 
a book as Genesis, which contains the account of 
the dispersion of mankind and the journeyings 
of the patriarchs, or in the Acts of the Apostles, 
giving the story of the spread of the gospel in 
various regions and the missionary travels of 
the great Apostle to the Gentiles, it is obviously 
of the first importance, and very many passages 
can be rightly understood only by its aid ; while 
in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, or the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, it is of secondary value. 
Yet probably in every book there are at least 
allusions or figures which, if not unintelligible 
without it, yet become more clear and forcible 
by its illustrations. 

Geography, or at least geographical names, 
must often be considered in connection with the 
times in which they were used. In Gen. ii. 
10-14 is a careful description of the location of 
Paradise ; yet writers have been found to pro- 



184 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

pose for it situations in almost every part of 
the world, forgetting that, unless the compiler 
of Genesis wished to mislead the people, he must 
have used these geographical names in the sense 
in which they were then commonly understood, 
and that two, at least, of the rivers mentioned 
have continued to bear the same names from a 
hoar antiquity. The Hiddekel (Tigris) and the 
Euphrates must have been the Hiddekel and the 
Euphrates of Moses' time. On the other hand, 
it is not always safe to conclude the identity of 
place from the identity of name, since several 
places may have borne the same name. Thus 
Cush, Sheba, Tarshish, and many more stand, in 
different connections, for widely separated locali- 
ties. A full geographical knowledge will gener- 
ally enable the interpreter to avoid confounding 
one with the other, and thus to avoid seriotis dif- 
ficulties. An instructive instance is that of the 
place named Dan. In Joshua xix. 47 and in 
Judges xviii. 27-29 there is a circumstantial ac- 
count of the capture of a certain city, Leshem or 
Laish, by a band of the tribe of Dan, and of their 
calling it " after the name of their father." Of 
the exact situation of the place in the extreme 
north of the land and at one of the sources of 
the Jordan, there can be no manner of doubt, 
and it is also as certain that its conquest and 
naming occurred during the period of the Judges. 



THE USE OF GEOGRAPHY. 185 

But the same name, Dan, occurs as a designa- 
tion of a place in the extreme north of the land 
in Deut. xxxiv. 1, and, also, in the same geo- 
graphical connection in the story of a far more 
remote period (Gen. xiv. 14). Under these cir- 
cumstances, the suggestion of a later date of 
these passages, or at least of the interpolation 
of this name by a later hand, is very obvious. 
Against this the plainly archaic character of Gen. 
xiv. weighs heavily, and the fact that, in that 
passage, several obsolete names, as Bela, Siddim, 
and En-mishpat, are explained is a strong evi- 
dence that Dan was at the time of the compiler 
a well known name which needed no explana- 
tion. 1 We have here a conflict of evidence, the 
solution of which would seem to be that the 
original name of Laish was Dan, and that when 
it was conquered by the Danites they restored 
the old name in honor of their ancestor ; but 
while such a solution would remove the diffi- 
culty, it cannot be admitted without evidence. 
Probable evidence has now been afforded by the 
discovery of a sarcophagus in a tomb near Sidon 
with a long Phoenician inscription on its lid in 

1 We do not here forget the ingenious argument of Dr. Bart- 
lett (addition to art. "Dan" in Amer. Ed. of Smith's Bible 
Dictionary) that Dan is in Gen. xiv. 14 a simple substitution 
by a later hand ; but the evidence seems to point the other 
way. 



186 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

which Ashmunazer, King of Sidon, records his 
conquest of Dor, Joppa, and " ample corn lands 
which are at the root of Dan." 1 The inscrip- 
tion has been somewhat variously translated, 
but the proper names are believed to be reliable. 
The age and history of Ashmunazer are un- 
known, but Joshua pushed his conquest "unto 
great Zidon " (Joshua xi. 8), and it appears his- 
torically unlikely that any later king of Sidon 
should have been powerful enough to have pos- 
sessed himself of these places. Thus a proba- 
bility appears that the proposed solution is his- 
torically true. 

The wanderings of David while outlawed by 
Saul can be understood only by a knowledge, 
not simply of the geographical position of the 
places mentioned, but also of the physical fea- 
tures of the country in which they were situated ; 
and several of the psalms, relating to the events 
of that time, have a fresh force and power if the 
mind is able to picture the scenery to which they 
refer. 

Saul's journey by night to consult the witch 
of Endor is to be considered with reference to 
the situation of his own camp and that of the 
Philistines, showing that it was necessary for 

1 Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. i., p. 201. [But 
vide last edition Central Palestine and Phoenicia, pp. 644, 
645.] 



THE USE OF GEOGBAPHY. 187 

him to pass and repass over the shoulder of the 
very ridge on which his enemies were posted 
(1 Sam. xxviii.). And the immense importance 
of his defeat is to be learned from the fact that, 
before the battle, the Philistines had succeeded 
in getting to the north of his army (1 Sam. 
xxviii. 4 ; xxix. 1), in a position somewhat north 
of the centre of the land. 

A moderate knowledge of the geography of 
Asia Minor is enough to explain the relative 
positions of Miletus and Ephesus in Acts xx. 
16, 17, and how it was that St. Paul could meet 
at the former place the elders of the church of 
the latter, without detention on the journey he 
was so anxious to accomplish. 

The relative positions and the facilities of 
communication between Ephesus, Colosse, and 
Laodicea need to be understood for the explana- 
tion of several passages in Paul's Epistles, and 
for that of several allusions to persons living in 
or traveling through these cities. 

But besides this geographical knowledge nec- 
essary to the interpretation of passages which 
have an immediate geographical connection, the 
well furnished interpreter requires such a thor- 
ough and general knowledge of the country in 
which the Biblical writers lived, as shall enable 
him, almost unconsciously, to enter into the 
geographical relations in which they were placed, 



188 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

and to feel the influence of the scenery in sight 
of which their minds were moulded. The love 
of nature, and the references to nature are strik- 
ing features in the sayings of many of the sacred 
authors. Even in the human development of 
Him who was more than man, may be traced the 
influence of His surroundings. The situation 
of Nazareth, in scenes of surpassing loveliness 
among the Galilean hills, with its exquisite views 
across the plain of Esdraelon and over the spurs 
of Carmel to the Mediterranean, needs to be un- 
derstood to appreciate the beauty of nature in 
the midst of which He was brought up. The 
suddenness and the danger of the storms on the 
Sea of Galilee can only be appreciated by a 
knowledge of its situation amidst its encircling 
hills. The pilgrims from Galilee to the feasts 
at Jerusalem crossed the upper fords of the 
Jordan, traveled down its eastern bank, and re- 
crossed at the fords near Jericho, thereby nearly 
doubling the length of their journey and greatly 
increasing its difficulty. This route, in com- 
parison with the direct one through Samaria, is 
to be constantly kept in mind in appreciating 
the strength of the hostility between the Jews 
and the Samaritans, as well as to explain the 
fact of our Lord's being found at Jericho on 
his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. There are, 
indeed, writers, like Paul and his companion 



THE USE OF GEOGRAPHY. 189 

Luke, whose lives were passed so largely in 
cities and the busiest haunts of men that they 
seldom allude to nature ; but this is exceptional, 
and of the far larger number of Scripture writ- 
ers it is emphatically true, that, to appreciate 
their writings, it is necessary to have before the 
mind's eye the general coloring of the landscape 
on which they looked and from which they often 
draw their illustrations. 

It can hardly be necessary to say that this 
knowledge should be possessed before attempt- 
ing any particular work of interpretation. The 
interpreter may indeed stop to ascertain some 
special geographical details involved in the pas- 
sage which may be before him ; but the acquisi- 
tion of a wider knowledge would take him too 
long and too far from his immediate work. In- 
deed, it often happens that he can bring a previ- 
ously acquired geographical knowledge to bear 
most effectively, when, but for the knowledge 
possessed, he might not have known that it 
would be of use. 

A mere familiarity with distances and points 
of the compass is often important both positively 
and negatively. The situation of Bethlehem on 
the road from Hebron to Jerusalem, and only 
six miles from the latter, helps to understand 
why David, who was born and brought up at 
Bethlehem, should have established his throne 



190 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

first at Hebron and then at Jerusalem (2 Sam. v. 
5). But far more important is the negative fact 
concurring with so many others in the life and 
character of our Lord. He was born at Bethle- 
hem, the city of David, whose successor He was 
and on whose throne He was to sit forever. Yet, 
much as He was at Jerusalem, we have no rec- 
ord of His ever having visited Bethlehem ; none 
of His mighty works were done there, and none 
of His discourses were uttered upon its hill. 
But of higher value than mere distances and 
directions are the physical features of the coun- 
try. To keep to the same place for illustra- 
tion : the site of Bethlehem is a limestone hill 
" on the summit level of the hill country of 
Judah, with deep gorges descending east to the 
Dead Sea, and west to the plains of Philistia." 
Here " the shepherds of Bethlehem had to con- 
tend not only with bears and lions, whose dens 
were in those wild wadies, but also with human 
enemies, — the Philistines on the west, and Arab 
robbers on the east. They would therefore, 
from childhood, be accustomed to bear fatigue, 
hunger, heat and cold, both by night and by 
day, and also to brave every kind of danger, 
and fight with every kind of antagonist." It 
was here that Joab and Abishai were trained, 
and the effect of such surroundings is seen in 
their bravery and strong characters, and also in 



THE USE OF GEOGBAPHY. 191 

their hardness and self-sufficiency. In David 
the same natural characteristics spring from the 
same influence of the surroundings of his youth ; 
but we see how powerful was the influence of 
that grace which, leaving this bravery and en- 
ergy to their full development, yet brought them 
under the control of the deepest humility, and 
transformed the self-dependent and self-willed 
warrior into one who ever looked to the will of 
God as the guide of his life. 

It is plain that this general aid to interpreta- 
tion given by geography is not to be sought 
from its study at the moment when one is en- 
gaged in the elucidation of a particular passage, 
but must have been already inwrought in the 
mind; while details of distances and situation, 
in so far as they are not familiar, may be looked 
up at the moment, just as one would consult a 
dictionary for the meaning of a forgotten word. 
In either case, however, the interpreter, on tak- 
ing in hand a passage, should seek to have the 
writer and those whom he addressed as vividly 
as possible before his mind in all their circum- 
stances and surroundings ; and in the great ma- 
jority of cases geography will prove one of the 
most important means to this end. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE USE OF HISTORY, GENERAL AND PARTIC- 
ULAR. 

In the application of history to exegesis the 
interpreter is brought into contact with external 
authorities more directly than in almost any 
other part of his work ; and in so far as the 
chronology of history is concerned, he will here 
encounter some of his most serious difficulties, 
requiring patient and thorough study for their 
solution. 

The value of history is, primarily, in enabling 
us to understand the times in which the various 
books of the Bible were written, and thus the 
limitations and the necessities of revelation. 
The most careless reader can see that the ser- 
mon on the mount would have been given quite 
in vain to the Israelites as they came out of 
Egypt, and that the discourse in John xiv.-xvi. 
would have been entirely unadapted to the 
wants of those who heard with avidity the ser- 
mon on the mount. Not less true is it that to 
the very end of our Lord's bodily presence with 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 193 

His disciples, He must tell them, " I have yet 
many things to say unto you, but ye cannot 
bear them now" (John xvi. 12), and He points 
them forward to a time of higher enlightenment, 
" when He, the Spirit of truth, is come " (ib. 
13) ; a fuller development of Christian doctrine 
is therefore reasonably to be looked for in the 
epistles than was possible at any time before the 
day of Pentecost. These remarks indicate that 
there has been a gradually increasing fullness 
and development of revelation, and that the 
Scriptures are to be interpreted in view of this 
fact. It would be quite unreasonable to look for 
either Christian knowledge, or for the conduct 
which can only be based on that knowledge, in 
the saints of the old dispensation. At the same 
time it is to be remembered that this process of 
development, which may be compared with that 
of evolution in nature, has not been necessarily 
uniform. There have been eras when it has 
been set forward with greatly accelerated rapid- 
ity of progress, and there have even been times 
when, for the sake of greater progress in the 
future, there has been an apparent, and even in 
some respects, a real set back, man having 
shown himself unequal to the opportunities 
which had been given him. Thus Paul teaches 
that the Scripture " preached before the Gospel 
unto Abraham" (Gal. iii. 8), but that after- 



194 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

wards the law " was added because of trans- 
gressions" (ib. 19). To understand the Scrip- 
ture revelation, it is, then, evidently necessary 
to study the history of the times in which it was 
given, and to become thoroughly familiar both 
with the opportunities and with the limitations 
belonging to the times of the writers. 

Much, otherwise obscure in the oracles of 
God, will in this way become clear. It has al- 
ready been pointed out in the Introduction that 
the Mosaic laws of revenge, of slavery, and 
of polygamy and divorce, were of the nature 
of restraining laws, leading the people from a 
lower condition up as far as they could bear 
towards a higher standard. But the educational 
purpose of the law is seen in very many de- 
tails as well as in these great salient features. 
History shows that the Israelites were not yet in 
a condition to receive and act upon principles, 
but, spiritual children as they were, must first 
be prepared for these by a long pupilage under 
special precepts. The purpose of some of these 
is expressly declared in the New Testament. 
Thus the precept, "Thou shalt not muzzle the 
mouth of the ox which treadeth out the corn " 
(Deut. xxv. 4), even as a precept of kindness 
and mercy, was not in the original giving of 
the law, but only in its recapitulation after 
the people had been elevated by the growing 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 195 

up of a fresh generation under the advantages 
of the Sinaitic legislation ; but still it was even 
then a merely educational precept, which Paul 
teaches (1 Cor. ix. 9; 1 Tim. v. 18) involved 
a principle applicable to the spiritual laborer in 
the divine harvest. 

It is easy to see the educational object of very 
many other precepts which do not happen thus to 
have been expressly explained in the New Tes- 
tament, so that in these lesser matters, as well 
as in its broader features and in its types, the 
law was still in accordance with its general pur- 
pose, " our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ " 
(Gal. iii. 24). If any single precept were to be 
selected as an illustration, reference might be 
made, on account of its importance, to the law 
of ransom in Ex. xxx. 14, 15 : " Every one that 
passeth among them that are numbered, from 
twenty years old and above, shall give an offer- 
ing unto the Lord. The rich shall not give 
more, and the poor shall not give less than half 
a shekel, when they give an offering unto the 
Lord, to make an atonement for your souls.' 9 
The great truth of the absolute equality of men 
before God — a truth as yet reached by no 
other nation, and after thousands of years of 
Divine teaching, still only with difficulty re- 
ceived under the full noontide of the Gospel — is 
here clearly set forth in what may fitly be called 



196 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

an " object lesson " for the spiritual infants of 
Israel. 

Passing from this general use of history, its 
value is next to be considered in its application 
to particular passages. Down to the time of 
the Babylonian captivity and the conquest of 
Cyrus, the great nations whose history interlocks 
with that of Israel were Egypt on the one side, 
and, on the other, the nations ruling in Mesopo- 
tamia and Chaldea, whether Assyrian or Baby- 
lonian, while of lesser nations, the most impor- 
tant are the original tribes of Canaan and those 
immediately adjoining the land of Israel, the 
Phoenicians, the Syrians, the Moabites, Ammon- 
ites, Edomites, the Philistines, and the various 
tribes of the desert. Of the history of the first 
two, large and authentic memorials have re- 
cently been brought to light in the discovery 
and reading of their own monumental remains, 
and this means of information is being con- 
stantly augmented by archaeological and philo- 
logical researches. Of the smaller nations less 
is known except from the Bible itself, from 
Josephus, and from occasional notices of them 
in the records of those greater nations. Occa- 
sionally, however, historic notices even of these 
are brought to light, as in the discovery of the 
famous " Moabite stone " in 1869. The bear- 
ing of the history of these various nations on 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 197 

the interpretation of passages of Scripture in 
which they are more or less directly concerned 
is obvious. As illustrations, some less promi- 
nent points may be selected because they will 
better show how far these histories penetrate 
into the web of the Scripture story. It is 
related of Solomon in the early part of his reign 
(1 Kings iii. 1), that he " made affinity with 
Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's 
daughter." Now, as this marriage was evi- 
dently contracted with political ends in view, 
and as there is no account of any revolution in 
either Egypt or Israel, it is somewhat surpris- 
ing to find that in the latter part of Solomon's 
reign Pharaoh not only gave asylum to his ene- 
mies, as Jeroboam (1 Kings xi. 40) and Hadad 
(ih. 18), but even contracted a close affinity 
with the latter and showed him especial favor 
and affection (ib. 19-22). The wonder is in 
nowise removed by learning (ib. 40) that this 
Pharaoh's name was Shishak, and, from 1 Kings 
xiv. 25, 26, 2 Chr. xii. 2-9, that he subse- 
quently made an expedition at the head of a 
powerful army against Eehoboam, Solomon's 
son, whom he despoiled of a great part of his 
treasures. The difficulty is at once solved when 
it is observed that on Egyptian monuments this 
Shishak is the Sheshonk, the first king of the 
xxist dynasty. There had been, then, in Egypt 



198 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

a change of dynasty, the new dynasty no longer 
having its royal city at Tanis, but at Tell-Basta, 
and altogether of such different antecedents and 
affinities 1 that it was not likely to feel any 
respect for the policy of those whom it had sup- 
planted. This fact is also of value for other 
points of interpretation. Sheshonk ascended 
the throne 980 b. c, and a chronological datum 
of importance is thus obtained. Still further, 
in the list of towns given in the inscription 
in which he records his conquest of Judah, 
while several are the same with cities fortified 
by Rehoboani in the early part of his reign 
(2 Chr. xi. 7-9), and others are known towns 
of Judah and Benjamin, there are also several, 
which, according to the partition of the king- 
dom, should have fallen to Jeroboam. " An ex- 
amination, however, of these names shows that 
the cities thus situated belong to two classes, — 
they are either Canaanite or Levitical. Hence 
we gather that during the four years which im- 
mediately followed the separation of the king- 
doms, Rehoboam retained a powerful hold on 
the dominions of his rival, many Canaanite and 
Levitical towns acknowledging his sovereignty, 
and maintaining themselves against Jeroboam, 
who probably called in Shishak mainly to assist 
him in compelling these cities to submission. 

1 Mariette Bey, Aperqu de VHistoire d'lZgypte, p. 74. 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 199 

The campaign was completely successful. The 
Levitical cities of Taanach, Rehob, Beth-horon, 
Kedemoth, Ibleam, and Alemeth, to the west of 
Jordan, of Mahanaim and Golan, to the east of 
that river, and the great Canaanite towns of 
Megiddo and Beth-shan were taken, probably 
by the combined forces of Jeroboam and Shi- 
shak, and were added to the dominions of the 
former. Shishak withdrew, having established 
his ally in the full possession of the whole terri- 
tory which he claimed, and having greatly 
weakened and humbled his rival. It was, per- 
haps, this cause, rather than the Divine prohibi- 
tion (1 Kings xii. 24), which prevented Reho- 
boam from attempting the invasion of the king- 
dom of Israel during the rest of his reign." x 

Another illustration from the Old Testament 
may be treated more briefly. In 2 Kings xx. 12, 
13, Isa. xxxix. 1, 2, there is an account of an 
embassy to King Hezekiah from Babylon after 
his recovery from his mortal sickness. We are 
told that he " showed them all the house of his 
precious things . . . there was nothing in his 
house nor in all his dominion that Hezekiah 
showed them not." Was this an act of mere 
vanity on the part of the pious monarch ? It is 
hard to believe it, and yet no reason is given 
for it in the sacred narrative. Can any light 

1 Rev. Geo. Rawlinson, in Speaker's Com., 1 Kings xiv. 25. 



200 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

be thrown upon his conduct from historical con- 
siderations ? At this time, Babylon was an un- 
easy tributary to Nineveh, with difficulty held 
in subjection by the great Assyrian monarchy, 
and was doubtless even now looking for alli- 
ances (which it afterwards found in the Medes) 
to enable it to throw off the hated yoke. Judah 
was much in the same condition ; during part of 
his reign, Hezekiah was actually a tributary to 
Sennacherib, and, when he revolted, suffered 
terribly at the hands of his powerful enemy 
and only escaped by providential interposition. 
Under these circumstances it can scarcely be 
doubted that the embassy from Babylon had a 
political significance, and that Hezekiah sought 
to present his resources in such a light as to 
show that his alliance was worth having. Hence 
we can understand the severity and the peculiar 
appropriateness of the consequent doom. In- 
stead of trusting entirely in the Lord, he was 
looking for earthly succor. The very aid he 
sought should be the instrument of his kins:- 
dom's destruction, and the very treasures by 
which he sought to attract it should be carried 
as a spoil to Babylon. 

In the interpretation of prophecy history is of 
essential service. Prophecy is usually an out- 
line sketch, the details of which it is impossible 
to fill out before the fulfillment. It has in it 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 201 

nothing of vagueness and uncertainty, like the 
heathen oracles which could be made to fit any 
event ; for the lines which are given are sharp 
and bold and strong. But we have no power to 
judge of their connections and the manner and 
method of their fulfillment, nor, generally, of the 
time. It is as if one traced on paper the simple 
outline against the sky of what he may see from 
his window, — houses, trees, and distant hills ; 
take the sketch away from the place where it 
was made, and no man could make out the 
details with certainty, but taking the sketch in 
his hand, he may go round the world and it will 
fit nowhere until he come to the exact place 
from which it was made, and then all becomes 
intelligible. So with the sketches of prophecy ; 
we can seldom understand more than their most 
prominent lines until we are borne on the course 
of time to that period of the world concerning 
which the sketch was given, and then all is clear. 
By far the larger part of the prophecies of the 
word of God have been long since fulfilled, and 
hence the value of history in enabling us to un- 
derstand them. Our Lord warned His disciples 
to flee in all haste when they should " see the 
abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel 
the prophet, stand in the holy place " (Matt, 
xxiv. 15). It is hardly to be supposed that any 
of those who heard His words understood pre- 



202 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

cisely what they meant ; but within forty years 
the Roman armies with their idolatries closed in 
upon Jerusalem, and then they saw the predic- 
tion fulfilled, and all who trusted in His word 
fled from the devoted city to Pella, and thus es- 
caped the horrors and destruction of the final 
siege of Jerusalem. 

Sometimes the sacred volume itself furnishes 
the history required for the interpretation of 
prophecy : as e. g., the story of the Gospel alone 
can explain the predictions of a glorious and yet 
suffering Messiah ; sometimes secular history 
alone must be resorted to, as is the case with 
much of the prophecies of the world empires in 
the book of Daniel and notably with those in 
chap. xi. ; sometimes the two must be combined, 
and sometimes no fulfillment is anywhere dis- 
tinctly recorded, but it may be inferred from 
facts and circumstances incidentally mentioned. 
A curious instance of the last is to be found in 
the dying prophecy of Jacob concerning his sons 
(Gen. xlix. 5-7) : — 

" Simeon and Levi are brethren ; 



I will divide them in Jacob, 
And scatter them in Israel." 



There is no difficulty in regard to Levi; the 
curse was indeed, afterwards, transformed into a 
blessing when he was made the especial tribe of 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 203 

the sanctuary in consequence of the zeal shown 
by him on God's behalf ; still the prophecy was 
literally accomplished. Levi had no inherit- 
ance among the tribes, but was scattered through 
the land in the appointed Levitical cities. No 
such fate was in store for Simeon ; the lot for 
this tribe was assigned on the southern border 
of Judah and he entered on its possession. 
There is no record of his having left it, and 
none of his being " scattered in Israel." Was, 
then, the prophecy fulfilled, and if so, how? 
The territory assigned to him was one which 
gradually assumed more and more of a desert 
character and became less and less agreeable as 
a residence, at the same time that it was pe- 
culiarly exposed to the forays of the Philistines 
and the incursions of the nomadic tribes of the 
desert. There were therefore strong reasons for 
their leaving their ancestral home. Even as 
early as the time of the outlawry of David, 
when much of the Scripture story is concerned 
with the country at and beyond the south of 
Judah, there is no mention of Simeon. When 
the kingdom was divided, Simeon cast in his lot 
with the northern division as one of the ten tribes. 
It is impossible that this could have been done 
if Simeon had remained in his original allot- 
ment, with the tribe of Judah intervening, in 
generally hostile attitude, between him and the 



204 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

body of the nation to which he adhered. It is 
therefore evident that this tribe had already mi- 
grated northward, and as there was no room 
for them as a whole, they must have been scat- 
tered among the other tribes. 

In the New Testament, history was formerly 
appealed to chiefly in the settlement of chrono- 
logical questions ; but the importance of its bear- 
ing upon interpretation in other relations is now 
more and more appreciated. The personal char- 
acters and the careers of such persons as Herod 
the Great, Herod Agrippa, Pilate, Felix, Gallio, 
and many others need to be seen historically in 
order to understand at once their conduct and 
the demeanor of others towards them. The his- 
tory of opinion is necessary to explain the par- 
ties and sects encountered in the Gospel narra- 
tive, and show why the statement of Christian 
truth should have been thrown into exactly the 
mould seen in each of the several epistles. For 
the use of the word 'IovSaloi in the Gospel of 
John, history supplies a reason in the fact that 
when this Gospel was written the Christian 
church had become completely severed from its 
Jewish cradle, and " the Jews," as such, were 
recognized as an antagonistic body, which was 
not the case before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
when the other Gospels were written. 

In John ii. 20 the Jews are represented as 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 205 

saying " forty and six years was this temple in 
building." The statement is one made by the 
Jews themselves, and curiosity is therefore nat- 
urally aroused in regard to its meaning. The 
temple of Solomon was seven years only in 
course of construction (1 Kings vi. 38), that of 
the return from the captivity, availing itself of 
the vast substructions of Solomon's temple still 
remaining, was only four years, reckoning from 
the time when its building was begun anew after 
the interruption caused by Tatnai (Ezra iv. 24 ; 
vi. 15). There is no record in Scripture of the 
building of any other temple ; but Josephus 
details at length its rebuilding, piecemeal, by 
Herod the Great, and tells us that the work 
was begun in the eighteenth year of his reign * 
and only completed in the reign of Herod Ag- 
rippa II., A. D. 64. 2 The whole period of the 
work was therefore above eighty years; but, 
one part of it being rebuilt at a time, the Jews 
speak of what had then been accomplished. 
Thus we learn that from the eighteenth year of 
Herod's reign (734-35 A. u. C.) to the time of 
our Lord's first passover was forty-six years. 

The bearing of history upon the chronology 
of the sacred records is important, but not un- 
attended with serious difficulties. The sacred 

1 Ant, xv., 11, § 1. 

2 Ant., xx., 9, §7. 



206 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

writers had no era from which to compute the 
years, like the Greek Olympiads or the Roman 
" A. u. C." ; but reckoned altogether by the years 
of the reigning monarch. Hence, before the 
foundation of the monarchy we have almost no 
reliable data, and after the division of the 
kingdom these is, within certain limits, great 
confusion from reckoning the accession of each 
monarch by the year of the reign of the rival 
monarch without any indication of the part of 
the year in which the accession took place. It 
has been the custom to attempt to fix the chro- 
nology of early times by the genealogies of the 
book of Genesis ; but, independently of the fact 
that these are given with considerable variations 
in the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Greek, it 
appears from a careful examination of them 
that they can in no case form a reliable basis 
for chronology. 1 We are forced to rely, there- 
fore, almost entirely upon the records of history 
for the chronology of the earliest ages, and also 
for its detail in many particulars of a later 
time. 

In the New Testament, points of chronology 
are determined entirely, especially in Luke and 
the Acts, by reference to the persons and events 

1 See article in Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xxx. (April, 1873) 
p. 323, on u The Chronological Value of the Genealogy in Gen- 



THE USE OF HISTORY. 207 

of contemporaneous history. A single illustra- 
tion may suffice to show at once the importance 
and the difficulty of this bearing of history 
upon the sacred chronology. The time of the 
birth of our Lord is fixed by Luke (ii. 2) as 
occurring at the period of the enrollment of 
the Jews under the governorship of Cyrenius 
(Quirinius). But we know from Josephus 1 that 
P. S. Quirinius became governor of Syria in 
A. r>. 6, and there is thus an apparent anach- 
ronism in the record of Luke, which has for 
many years occasioned extreme difficulty to in- 
terpreters. By the learned and laborious his- 
torical researches of A. W. Zumpt, however, it is 
made highly probable that Quirinius was twice 
governor of Syria, and that his former governor- 
ship was about from B. C. 4-1. The difficulty 
thus apparently removed, reappears again in a 
slight degree on finding that the preceding gov- 
ernor, Quintilius Varus, was still employed in 
subduing a revolt of the Jews after the death of 
Herod, which occurred after our Lord's birth. 2 
As yet, no historical explanation of this has 
been found ; but, the whole period of difficulty 
having now been reduced to a few months, it 
may well be supposed that the enrollment was 
begun by Varus, but, being left incomplete by 

1 Ant., xvii., 13, § 5 ; xviii., 1, § 1. 

2 Tac, Hist., v., 9; Jos., Ant., xvii., 10. 



208 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

him on account of the terrible disorders which 
filled the close of his governorship, it was fin- 
ished by Quirinius, and therefore attributed to 
him. It is noticeable that Luke calls this en- 
rollment 7T/OCOT77, to distinguish it from another 
enrollment in Quirinius' second governorship in 
A. D. 6, to which allusion is made in his record 
of Gamaliel's speech in Acts v. 37. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE USE OF ARCHEOLOGY AND ANTIQUITIES. 

So much has been said elsewhere incidentally 
upon this subject that it may here be treated 
briefly. Yet it is evident that as the study of 
archaeology must be one of the bases of any his- 
tory worthy of the name, so it must be one of the 
essentials to the full understanding of all those 
parts of the Bible which have a historical side. 
To understand the character and needs of the 
Israelites at the time of the Mosaic legislation, 
and therefore to appreciate so much of the rea- 
son for this legislation as is involved in that 
character and those needs, we must know the 
influences, the manners and customs, the polity 
and the religion, under which they and their 
fathers had hitherto lived ; in other words, we 
must study the archaeology of Egypt. In the 
same way the archaeology of the Chaldeans is 
necessary to a full understanding of the prophe- 
cies of Ezekiel, delivered to the captives settled 
by the river Chebar. 

To come to a later time : in order to bring 
before the mind's eye a vivid picture of our 



210 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

Lord in His ministry on earth, and thus to enter 
into the full force of His teachings, it is neces- 
sary to know the character of the houses in which 
the people lived, their modes of travel, the roads 
by which they passed, the nature of their occu- 
pations, their customs of trade and of agricul- 
ture, their relations to the Greeks, the Romans, 
and others who lived among them, in a word, all 
that is embraced in the archaeology of the Pales- 
tine of that period. Later still, the travels, the 
voyages, the manifold experiences of Paul, de- 
pend largely for their interpretation upon the 
archaeology of the countries through which he 
passed. As an illustration of this, in what 
may be called an almost unnoticed corner of 
Scripture, take the note in what may be called 
Luke's journal in Acts xxviii. 13 : " We came 
the next day to Puteoli, where we found breth- 
ren." The ruins of Puteoli, now Pozzuoli, are 
still visible a few miles west of Naples. There 
is but one place where the ship in which Paul 
sailed could have landed him and his fellow- 
prisoners. This is a very long and narrow 
quay, stretching far out from the shore and 
with the end now submerged. As the Apostle 
landed on this and was marched by the centu- 
rion to the shore, he had directly before him, at 
the head of the quay, the famous temple of 
Serapis. It was a temple which, in this Greek 



THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY. 211 

colony, bore witness to the decaying religions 
of the classic nations, and showed the effort to 
bolster them up by the introduction of foreign 
superstitions ; for Serapis was an Egyptian deity. 
It also bore witness to the hollowness, priest- 
craft, and fraud of those religions; for this 
temple was famous for its miraculous cures, the 
secret of which is exposed by the thermal and 
medicinal springs which flow through the ady- 
tum of the temple. It was in the midst of the 
worship and the ideas which this temple symbol- 
ized that Paul found " Christian brethren." His 
and their position, the conflict which awaited the 
truth Paul preached, the nature of his work, the 
difficulties and dangers he was called to undergo, 
are all illustrated by this little bit of archaeology. 
In passing, it may be noticed how this same 
temple illustrates also the parables of our Lord 
of the mustard seed (Matt. xiii. 31, 32) and of 
the leaven (ib. 33). This temple stood then, 
and for some ages after, in its full splendor, 
while Paul, because he was a Christian, was com- 
pelled to march as a prisoner before its gate. 
It still bears a marble inscription testifying to 
the liberality of Augustus in its repairs. Ages 
passed by. The then little seed of the church 
grew and strengthened until the heathen temples 
became neglected, and were suffered to fall into 
decay. The ground on which this temple stood 



212 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

gradually sunk beneath the level of the sea, 
while the rubbish accumulated around its pil- 
lars of Egyptian marble until it had risen to 
twelve feet of their height and the sea rose 
upon them to nineteen feet, the exact measure- 
ments being marked by the borings of the ma- 
rine lithodomus in the part below the water and 
unprotected by the rubbish. Centuries rolled 
away and the temple of Serapis was forgotten. 
At last, the rising ground lifted it again above 
the waves, and it could be safely examined and 
its history sought out by the Christian as a monu- 
ment of a buried superstition, which had passed 
away with the once mighty empires of Egypt, of 
Greece, and of Rome. 

In the narrative of our Lord's standing before 
Caiaphas and of His being thrice denied by His 
boldest Apostle there are certain difficulties 
which are removed by a knowledge of the 
structure of an oriental house. The trial being 
held in the night, it was without doubt in the 
high priest's own palace, and this was built, 
after the eastern fashion, around the four sides 
of an open court with a passage way of some 
length leading from the street to the court. By 
reason of the cold, a fire had been built in 
this open court where Peter stood and warmed 
himself (John xviii. 18), while his Master, 
bound, stood at the entrance of a room in which 



THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY. 213 

Caiaphas was seated and which opened upon the 
court. As the trial went on and the accusations 
grew more fierce, Peter shrunk back into the 
passage way (av\rj), but with the light from the 
fire still shining upon him (Luke xxii. 56), 
when the woman who kept the door (John xviii. 
17) recognized him as the one whom she had 
admitted with John, and accused him as a dis- 
ciple. Then came his first denial. As time 
went on he again drew near the fire and mingled 
with the crowd standing round it ; but one and 
another began to whisper about him, another 
maid (Matt. xxvi. 71) saying to those around 
her (toLs iKeT) that he was with Jesus, and then 
the same maid (Mark xiv. 69) taking up the 
word and giving assurance of its truth to those 
that stood by (rols Trapeo-iwu/), Peter, meanwhile, 
withdrawing from their gaze and whisperings to 
the passage way (irpoavXiov, Mark xiv. 68) near 
the gate (cfe rov irv\a>va 9 Matt. xxvi. 71), when 
after a little, a man dacra (^payy hepos, Luke xxii. 
58) seeing him directly accused him and he 
again denied, John summing up the whole of 
the confused scene by using the plural "they 
said to him" (elirov ovv avTu, xviii. 25), in which 
we must not lose sight of the ovv, therefore, 
which refers to the whisperings and accusa- 
tions which had been going on around the fire. 
Finally, after a little time (^cra puKpov, Matt. xxvi. 



214 THE ABT OF INTEBPBETING. 

73, Mark xiv. 70), definitely fixed by Luke as 
"about an hour" (verse 59), the accusations 
were renewed, according to the first two Evan- 
gelists, by several persons, while according to 
Luke (verse 59) their spokesman was another 
man (a'AAos rts), who is identified by John as a 
servant of the high priest and a kinsman of the 
one whose ear Peter had cut off, the multitudi- 
nous accusations being that he was a Galilean 
(Matt., Mark, Luke), and more particularly, 
that he had been seen in the garden (John). 
Again came a denial with oaths, and then the 
Master, who was standing in a position from 
which Peter could be seen, turned and looked 
upon him, and brought him to his bitter repent- 
ance. The simple knowledge of the probable 
structure of the house, with attention to the 
exact language used by each of the Evangelists, 
thus removes what has sometimes been consid- 
ered as a marked discrepancy in the narrative. 

A knowledge of the different methods of reck- 
oning the hours of the day in use at the time 
the Gospels were written is valuable, both for 
removing an apparent discrepancy between the 
Gospels, and also for the better understanding 
of several passages in John. That the common 
Jewish method of numbering the hours from 
sunrise was followed by the Synoptists, admits 
of no -question ; but there was another system, 



THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY. 215 

the official system of the Romans, with which 
John must have been acquainted. The exist- 
ence of this system has been doubted, but the 
following citations must remove all doubt on 
that point: Pliny writes, "Ipsum diem alii 
aliter observavere . . . vulgus omne a luce ad 
tenebras : sacerdotes Eomani, et qui diem defi- 
niere civilem, item iEgyptii et Hipparchus, a 
media node in mediam" 2 Also Aulus Gel- 
lius, " Populum autem Eomanum ita, uti Varro 
dixit, dies singulos adnumerare a media node 
usque ad mediam proximam multis argumentis 
ostenditur," and he goes on to give these proofs. 2 
Assuming that John used this reckoning, not 
only is the difficulty between John xix. 14 and 
Mark xv. 25 entirely removed, but an impor- 
tant help is gained in the interpretation of all 
the other passages in John in which mention is 
made of the hour. The congruity of this sys- 
tem with his narrative throughout is a weighty 
reason for thinking that he adopted it. Thus 
in i. 37-40 mention is made of the two disciples 
of John the Baptist who sought an interview 
with Jesus " and remained with him that day : 
it was about the tenth hour." According to the 
Jewish system, this would have been about four 
in the afternoon, allowing but short time for that 

1 Pliny, Nat. Hist, ii., 79. 

2 Aul. Gellius, JSfoct. Att, lib. iii., 2. 



216 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

interview which had so great an effect on their 
opinions and changed their whole subsequent 
life ; but by the other reckoning it was about ten 
in the morning, which allows a more probable 
length of time for the interview. In John iv. 
4-30 occurs the account of the discourse with 
the woman of Samaria ; ver. 6 states that " it was 
about the sixth hour " when Jesus, wearied with 
the way, sat on the well and the woman came to 
draw water. It would be contrary to all orien- 
tal usage that she should have gone out of the 
city to draw water in the heat of noon, but if 
John is understood to use that reckoning of 
the hours which made this six in the evening, 
her action becomes perfectly natural, and our 
Lord's hunger and weariness is also explained. 
Once more, in John iv. 52, the nobleman of Ca- 
pernaum learns from his servants (who had come 
to meet him) that his son had been healed at 
the seventh hour of the previous day, — the same 
hour at which Jesus had spoken to him. If, 
according to Jewish usage, 1 P. M. had been 
meant by the " seventh hour " it is incredible 
that the nobleman and his servants should not 
have met until the following day. The site, 
indeed, of both Cana and Capernaum is in 
doubt, yet fixed within such limits that the jour- 
ney from the one to the other could easily have 
been performed after one o'clock. The servants 



THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY. 217 

would have had time to bring the joyful news 
quite to Cana, and the nobleman would have 
had time to reach his son at Capernaum ; going 
towards each other they would of course have 
met much sooner. But if the " seventh hour " 
was our seven in the evening, the journey of 
either party mast have been deferred until the 
next morning. Hence when they met, they said 
"yesterday, at the seventh hour the fever left 
him." It may then very certainly be concluded 
that John uses throughout this method of nam- 
ing the hours ; as, though the cases cited are the 
only instances, there are no instances whatever 
of the commoner method of the Synoptists. 

Another case of supposed opposition in the 
parallel passages of the Gospels may be ex- 
plained in the same way by reference to the cus- 
toms of the times. On our Lord's last journey 
to Jerusalem He passed through Jericho with 
the crowd of pilgrims going up to the Feast. 
On this occasion He healed two blind men 
according to Matthew, of whom only one, Bar- 
timeus, the more prominent, is mentioned by the 
other Evangelists. But the first two Evangel- 
ists say expressly that this was when He was 
departed from Jericho CiK7mpevojub€vo}v avrwv ano 
'Icpct^w, Matt, xx, 29 ; and, in the singular, 
Mark x. 46), while Luke says that it was while 
he was drawing near to Jericho (eV tw lyyt^av 



218 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

avrov els 'Iepct^w, Luke xix, 35). From the leis- 
urely character of this whole journey and the 
constant embracing of every opportunity to 
teach, it is altogether likely that our Lord spent 
some days in the neighborhood of Jericho. It 
is the well-known custom of travelers in the 
East on visiting a city to lodge without its 
walls, as may be illustrated by our Lord's own 
lodging at Bethany during the following week 
spent at Jerusalem, and as is still the custom 
with travelers in Palestine at the present day ; 
in fact, at the time of the Passover, it would 
have been impossible for the crowd of pilgrims 
passing through to have found lodgings within 
the city. Now if these two very probable sup- 
positions, the latter of which results from a 
known archaeological fact, be put together, the 
difficulty is easily solved. The miracle occurred 
when our Lord had gone out of Jericho for the 
night, and more exactly, when He was drawing 
near to it again in the morning. 

In the use of archaeology in these and a mul- 
titude of similar instances of interpretation, it is 
plain that the archaeological facts cannot be 
hunted up by the interpreter in connection with 
the particular passage he is explaining. He 
would have no clue to what he should seek, or 
to where it could be found. His mind must 
be already familiar with the facts, and then 



THE USE OF ARCHEOLOGY. 219 

when the occasion arises to which they are 
applicable, they will present themselves to his 
consideration. 

Archaeology often gives a fresh view of the 
meaning of the text when there are no difficul- 
ties to be removed. In 2 Tim. iv. 13 Paul di- 
rects Timothy when he should come to him to 
bring certain things left at Troas, and among 
them " the books, but especially the parchments," 
What were these parchments ? Archaeology 
shows but two kinds of material used for manu- 
scripts, papyrus and parchment. The former 
was by far the cheaper and more common ; it is 
probable that this very epistle was written upon 
it. But it was also fragile and easily destroyed 
by much use, so that all the more valuable works 
were written on parchment when it could be 
obtained. Paul was not in circumstances to 
spend much upon literary treasures, and yet he 
had some parchments. These, then, must have 
contained the books most highly prized by him, 
and the inference seems a safe one that in all 
probability they were copies of parts of the Old 
Testament. In Gen. xli. 42 it is said, " Pharaoh 
took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon 
Joseph's hand." One wonders how the ring 
that fitted the finger of Pharaoh also happened to 
fit that of Joseph. In the British Museum many 
signet rings of ancient Egypt are preserved, and 



220 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

a considerable number of them are not joined 
together solidly, as in a modern ring, but are 
connected by a spiral spring of gold wire, allow- 
ing them to fit any finger. 

In the book of Ecclesiastes the evils of the 
existing government are represented so strongly 
that this fact has been urged as a powerful 
argument against the Solomonic authorship of 
the book. Archaeology makes it evident that 
these evils were every where inseparable from the 
oriental system of government. No other system 
was known to the period ; had Solomon, in his 
wisdom, been able to devise a better, it is hardly 
possible that he could have planted it among his 
people in the space of a single generation, and 
it is more than doubtful whether his luxurious 
character w T ould have allowed him to attempt it. 
The evils described did then certainly exist under 
Solomon's government, and to his mind, being 
inseparable from all government, were no re- 
proach to him. There was therefore no reason 
why he should not speak of them in this philo- 
sophical treatise, nor for rejecting the traditional 
authorship of the book. 

On the other hand, supposed mistakes in arch- 
aeology have sometimes been detected, and could 
they have been substantiated, would certainly 
have seriously militated against the received 
authorship of the books in which they occur. 



THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGY. ^1 

Thus in Gen. xl. 9-11 the vine is mentioned as 
cultivated in Egypt for wine. But Herodotus 
(ii. 77) says that the vine was unknown in an- 
cient Egypt and that the Egyptian wines were 
made of barley. The monuments of Egypt, how- 
ever, show that the vine was cultivated, and the 
art of making wine from it practiced, from the 
earliest periods. 

So also the authorship of Genesis has been 
called in question from the assumption of igno- 
rance of an archaeological fact which must have 
been known to the Israelites. In Gen. 1. 2, 3 it 
is said, " and the physicians embalmed Israel. 
And forty days were fulfilled for him ; for so are 
fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed." 
The Israelites could not have been ignorant of 
the Egyptian custom of embalming ; but as they 
did not practice it among themselves, at the 
end of forty years after the Exodus, when Moses 
must have revised his writings, and when all 
who had lived to maturity in Egypt were dead, 
they may well have forgotten about the time 
required, and so have needed this explanation. 
There is therefore nothing in this to throw any 
doubt on the Mosaic authorship of the book. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE USE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 

There is, perhaps, no other knowledge, out- 
side of that immediately connected with his 
work, of more importance to the interpreter, and 
yet requiring to be applied with so much dis- 
cretion as the knowledge of natural science. 
The interpreter will be extremely apt to involve 
himself in difficulties and error, if he attempt 
to bring forward imperfectly understood facts or 
theories of science in the explanation of partic- 
ular passages of Scripture ; for a more perfect 
knowledge may show that the bearing of the 
fact or theory of science has been misunder- 
stood, and thus not only is he left in a some- 
what ridiculous position, but also the impression 
is produced that the facts which have failed to 
help in the explanation are really in some sort 
of antagonism to the statements of the text. A 
noteworthy instance of this occurred when, in 
the early progress of geology, fossils were dis- 
covered in the rocks upon mountain heights, and 
the fact was at once claimed as indisputable 
proof of the deluge. To be sure, the counter 



THE USE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 223 

claim of Voltaire and his school, that they were 
shells dropped by the returning pilgrims from 
the holy land, was still more ridiculous; but 
when, in the progress of science both supposi- 
tions were disproved, and it was found that these 
fossils attained their present position by the 
elevation of the land, and, having been deposited 
in extremely remote eras, could have nothing to 
do with the Noachian deluge, the discomfiture 
of Voltaire's followers was a matter of little 
consequence, while a serious impression was 
produced on many minds that the Bible re- 
quired for its support unfounded hypotheses. 

Nevertheless a knowledge of natural science 
is often of great service, both in enabling us to 
understand facts of nature which underlie much 
of the Scripture story, and in preventing false 
interpretations of particular passages, and some- 
times even in giving us important help in their 
interpretation. Such facts as the periodical 
rising of the Nile illustrate all that part of the 
Bible which relates to Egypt ; while the know- 
ledge of the geological formation of the greater 
part of Palestine, as a dolomitic limestone, ac- 
counts at once for the extraordinary fruitfulness 
of the soil when properly irrigated, and also for 
the abundance and size of the caves of which 
such frequent mention is made in the sacred 
narrative. The fact that the course of the Jor- 



224 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

dan lies in a deep depression produced by a 
geological convulsion in some unknown era, so 
that even the Sea of Galilee is a little below, 
and the Dead Sea is 1,300 feet below the level 
of the Mediterranean, continually illustrates 
the history of the life of Israel and explains ap- 
parent anomalies in the natural productions of 
the country, as, e. g., the palm at Jericho. The 
rugged basaltic plateau in the " land of Bashan," 
with the wide stretches of pasture lands around 
it, explains how Moses could have found so 
many cities grouped in so small a space, and 
could have conquered so many in so short a 
time. 1 These are, indeed, geographical facts, 
but facts to be best appreciated with some 
knowledge of geology. 

In John v. 2-7 occurs the account of the im- 
potent man at the pool of Bethesda. Throwing 
out the last clause of verse 3, and the whole of 
verse 4, as not a part of the genuine text, we 
have a story, which needs explanation, of a mul- 
titude of sick folk waiting for the time when the 
water should be moved. Archaeological investi- 
gation, supplemented by some knowledge of hy- 
draulics, shows that this pool was probably fed 
by an intermittent spring, 2 and to this the peo- 

1 See Porter's Giant Cities of Bashan. 

2 See Robinson's Biblical Researches, vol. i., pp. 499-508, 
especially 507, 508. 



THE USE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 225 

pie (whether rightly or wrongly the text does 
not say) attributed therapeutic virtue. 

The breaking up of the golden calf in the wil- 
derness by Moses (Ex. xxxii. 20), has already 
been spoken of as an instance in which chem- 
istry, by showing that gold with a small per- 
centage of certain alloys becomes crystalline 
and brittle, and that the Egyptians used such 
alloy in some of their ornaments, has been able 
to relieve the narrative of what once seemed an 
insuperable difficulty. 

The three hours of noonday darkness, while 
our Lord hung upon the cross (Matt, xxvii. 45 ; 
Mark xv. 33 ; Luke xxiii. 44), some persons once 
sought to explain as the effect of an eclipse ; but, 
knowing that the event occurred at the full 
moon (being on the 15th Nisan), the slightest 
knowledge of astronomy shows that this was im- 
possible. 

Twice in the Bible miracles are recorded by 
which the apparent motion of the sun was de- 
layed or reversed : the miracle of Joshua (Josh, 
x. 12-14), and the going back of the shadow 
ten degrees on the sun-dial of Ahaz, in the time 
of Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 9-11 1 Isa. xxxviii. 8). 
It was once supposed that these miracles might 
have been wrought by the temporary stoppage 
of the revolution of the earth on its axis ; but 
independently of other and sufficient scientific 



22G THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

objections to this, it is now known, by calcula- 
tions from the records of ancient eclipses, that 
no such disturbance of time can have occurred 
since a period long anterior to that in which 
these miracles were wrought. It is evident that 
both these miracles were phenomenal ; and in 
regard to the latter, an explanation of the way 
in which it was wrought can be easily supplied 
by the supposition of a slight " terrce mot us." 

Natural science has enabled us to see in a 
striking light the vast superiority of the cos- 
mogony in Gen. i. to that of any other which 
ever appeared among the nations, and even, 
from its general truthfulness in regard to things 
far beyond the human knowledge of the time, 
to infer with at least a high degree of probabil- 
ity that it must have been revealed. 

While science requires a more careful exami- 
nation of the evidence by which the Scriptural 
miracles are attested, it also gives to them, when 
sufficiently proved, an apologetic value of a 
much higher kind ; for it shows conclusively 
that they could only have been wrought by the 
intervention of a higher than human intelligence 
and power, and were, therefore, not mere repdra, 
but o-rjjjLeLa, in the highest sense. 

But, as was said at the outset, the great value 
of scientific knowledge is not in the interpreta- 
tion of particular texts, but in the analogies it 



THE USE OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 227 

offers to revealed truths, and especially in the 
better understanding to be obtained of the ways 
of God from the study of His works. Revelation 
and nature, it cannot be too often repeated, are 
from the same hand and are mutually illustra- 
tive of one another. Without the knowledge of 
nature the interpreter is constantly liable to fall 
into the same sort of errors of exegesis as those 
by which the theology of the church was for 
many ages disfigured, until corrected by advan- 
cing science. 1 

1 But here let me enter a caveat. The knowledge of sci- 
ence, if genuine and true, is chiefly important in its effect 
upon the interpreter's own mind. It will, indeed, largely 
modify his expression, hut there is seldom occasion to speak of 
it directly. It is much worse than useless to affect a know- 
ledge which one does not have, and nowhere is ignorance more 
conspicuous than in dealing with a subject to which so many 
advanced specialists are devoted. None are so ready to lug 
in science by the heels as those who know least about it ; and 
their use of it is likely to be as offensive to the scientist as to 
the theologian. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES, AND 
THE IMMEDIATE CONNECTION. 

The two subjects here placed together are 
sufficiently easily separated in theory, but prac- 
tically they interlock so closely that it has 
seemed better to treat them together. 

Under this head the interpreter comes to an 
essential part of his work, and one requiring the 
utmost thoroughness. Supposing him to have 
already become familiar with the required lan- 
guages in the course of his preparation, he has 
now to apply his knowledge with accuracy and 
care to ascertain exactly what the writer meant 
to say by the Words he has used and the form 
into which he has thrown them. Regard must 
first of all be had to the genius of the language, 
whether the Hebrew of the Old Testament or 
the Hellenistic Greek of the New. With this 
the interpreter must be supposed to be already 
familiar. It is a knowledge which he cannot 
acquire for the first time in the examination of 
any particular passage ; but in which he must 
be so thoroughly grounded that it will, even 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 229 

without any especial attention to it, always affect 
his whole work of translation. Doubtless he 
should continue to the last to grow in this mat- 
ter ; but he cannot be fitted to his task until he 
has made some good progress in it. 

With this preparation, the general sense of 
any particular passage will become obvious to 
him on simply reading it over. Then, when he 
begins to study it more carefully, his first point 
is to ascertain the logical connection; for this 
will often seriously modify the sense of particu- 
lar words and sometimes of larger constructions. 
Thus in Rom. ix. 13, or in the passage from 
which it is quoted, Mai. i. 2, 3, a knowledge of 
the Hebrew idiom shows that when God is rep- 
resented as saying "Jacob have I loved, but 
Esau have I hated," the word " hated" is not to 
be taken in that absolute sense which the ifjiLcrrjaa 
or the YiS^ttf taken alone, might bear ; but is a 
relative term, a term of comparison, standing 
over against the rjyaTrrjora and to be understood 
in connection therewith. 1 Familiar instances of 
similar usage are in John xii. 25, where the 
jjLco-o)v is in contrast with cjuX&v, and where not 
only no one would think of understanding the 
fucrtov of an absolute hatred of one's life, but 
where such hatred would be clearly opposed to 

1 For the opposite view see Meyer, and also Alf ord, in Rom. 
ix. 13. 



230 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

God's will. Another instance is Luke xiv. 26, 
where the contrast is not expressed, but only 
implied in the love necessary el^ai fxov fxaOvrr^ ; 
here the absolute hatred of all earthly relations, 
as well as of one's own life, would contradict all 
Christian teaching as well as the example of our 
Lord Himself. Again, in Luke x. 20, rejoicing 
in the subjection of the spirits is only relatively 
forbidden, and in verse 21 the thanks are given 
not that " these things are hidden " from any one, 
but only that they are revealed to babes rather 
than to the wise. This being understood in 
regard to the sense of the ifiiarjo-a from a general 
knowledge of the language, the next point to be 
noted is the logical connection. In Rom. ix. it 
is evident that the subject treated is the (par- 
tial) rejection of the Israelites and the calling 
of the Gentiles ; and in the passage in Mai. i. 
2-4, the reference, in the same way, is to the 
nations descended from Jacob and Esau. How- 
ever the progenitors may be considered as con- 
nected with their descendants, the subject, in 
either place, is the descendants, viewed as 
nations. The sense of the whole passage then is, 
that in the setting aside the mass of the Israelites 
and the calling of the Gentiles there is nothing 
new or strange, for all along God has set aside 
a large part of the seed of Abraham, as in the 
case of Esau, and fulfilled His promises only to 
a remnant. 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 231 

The general context as bearing upon the 
grammatical interpretation having thus been 
considered, the interpreter's next care must be 
with the immediate context and with the gram- 
matical structure of the passage before him. 
The meaning of a sentence may easily be misap- 
prehended, sometimes even reversed, if this be 
not rightly understood. 

A great deal of doctrinal statement has been 
made to rest on Rom. xiv. 23, " Whatsoever is 
not of faith is sin," which is deprived of all 
support from this passage by simply observing 
the connection ; for the ovk eV Trio-rcus is evi- 
dently not used here in the special sense of faith 
in Christ, but in contrast to the 6 SiaKpivofievos. 
The meaning of the passage in its connection is, 
that he who does anything of the rightfulness of 
which he is in doubt is condemned, because he 
violates his conscience ; for whatever is done 
without a clear conviction of its right is sinful. 

The A. V. (and also the revisers) translate 
the last clause of 1 John v. 20, " This is the 
true God and eternal life," where the antecedent 
of this is ambiguous, but with a presumption 
that it refers to the truth enunciated in the 
earlier part of the verse ; but on turning to the 
grammatical structure of the original it is plain 
thafc the antecedent of oStos is personal ; but 
whether it refers to 0e6s, the main subject of the 



232 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

passage, or to 'lrjcrov X/ho-toj, the immediate ante- 
cedent, is disputed among commentators, and 
must be determined by the logical connection. 

In Mark xvi. 4 the particle for (yap) is often 
misunderstood. Attention to the connection 
shows that it refers to the question, " Who shall 
roll us away the stone?" and not to the immedi- 
ately preceding clause, " they saw that the stone 
was rolled away." Here the logical connection 
prevails over the grammatical. 

Many passages are made clear by a know- 
ledge of the fact that the third person plural of 
the verb (active or middle) is often used imper- 
sonally, in the same sense as the third person 
singular of the passive. An instance in which 
our translators have recognized this usage is 
Luke xii. 20, " this night thy soul shall be re- 
quired of thee ; " lit., " they shall require ; " 
another instance in which they have failed to 
recognize it, and the failure has led to much 
difficulty of interpretation, occurs in the same 
gospel, xvi. 9 : u Make to yourselves friends of 
the mammon of unrighteousness ; that when ye 
fail, they may receive you into everlasting habi- 
tations." This is often understood as if the 
nominative to Se^vrat were either <j>L\ni or fxajucwva 
taken in a collective sense ; really it is imper- 
sonal and the sense is, " so use the riches 
entrusted to you that they may become your 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 233 

friends, and in view of your faithfulness ye may 
be received" etc. 

Heb. xii. 1 presents a case both of the impor- 
tance of the grammatical connection, and of 
attention to the meaning of words. Chapter xi. 
has recounted a long list of the heroes of faith, 
and there, in xii. 1, these are spoken of as a vast 
cloud of fjLaprvpiDv " compassing us about." The 
word fxaprvp is anglicized martyr in just its orig- 
inal sense, and hence the meaning is not, that 
we have many witnesses of our Christian course ; 
but that we run in the midst of a vast army who 
by faith have already won the crown. The 
stimulus proposed is not their seeing us, but 
their faithful example under great trials, all 
culminating in the example of the apxnyos and 
TeXeoDTrjs of the faith, Jesus. This sense is ob- 
scured in the A. V. both by the obsolete trans- 
lation witnesses, and also by the unfortunate 
division of the chapters. 

Only by careful attention to the connection 
can the distinction of meaning be observed in 
the parallel verses, John v. 25 and 29. In the 
former the reference is to the spiritually, in the 
latter to the literally, dead. The fact that the 
last shall certainly be raised to life is made a 
reason why we should not wonder that the first 
shall be spiritually quickened. 

After our Lord's discourse concerning the 



234 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

bread of life, at Capernaum, many of his disci- 
ples murmured and said, " This is an hard say- 
ing ; who can hear it?" (John vi. 60). The 
question has been hotly discussed whether this 
" hard saying " was Christ's requirement that 
they should eat His flesh and drink His blood 
(vs. 53-56) literally understood, or whether it 
was trusting in Him as the essential and suffi- 
cient condition of salvation, which is certainly 
the leading thought of the discourse, and was 
the thing which offended them so much in ver- 
ses 41, 42. To determine this, a consideration 
of the context is essential. In verses 61, 62 our 
Lord asks, " Doth this offend you ? What and 
if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where 
He was before ? " There is nothing apparent in 
this to remove the difficulty about eating flesh 
and drinking blood ; because there is no congru- 
ity between the two things, and nothing in the 
one to show the possibility of the other. But 
His ascension would be an unanswerable argu- 
ment to the objection that He was making too 
much of Himself as the central point of man's 
salvation. We must conclude, therefore, from 
the answer, that this was the gist of the objec- 
tion. 

Sometimes a want of familiarity with the 
grammatical constructions of the New Testa- 
ment on the part of the scribes who copied its 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 235 

MSS., in later ages, has led to unfounded and 
even unfortunate changes of the text which 
have passed into the Textus Receptus, and thus 
into the A. V. One of these, of great impor- 
tance from a chronological point of view, is in 
Acts xiii. 20 where the words koL /xera ravra have 
been transferred from their proper place after 

OJ9 €T€(TL T€TpOLKO(TLOl<; KCU 7r€VTY}KOVTa tO a pOSltlOn 

before them where they do not belong. The 
effect of this is to give an erroneous statement 
of the length of the period of the Judges, instead 
of a correct one of the time from the promise to 
Abraham to the division of the land among his 
descendants. 

Another instance is in the uncalled for inser- 
tion of the word dva^lw^ in 1 Cor. xi. 29. The 
scribes did not understand that firj in the sen- 
tence 6 yap €Ct8l(ji)v kcu irtvoiv Kpifia eavrco IcrOUi kcu 

ttlv€l, fir} StaKpiV(x>v to crco/xa, means if not y but tak- 
ing it in the sense of the simple negative ov, felt 
compelled to insert the explanatory dva£tW 

One of the words the construction of which in 
the New Testament requires to be carefully 
noted, because it varies from that of classic 
Greek, is the particle IVa. A discussion of this 
word here would occupy quite too large a space, 
and reference only can be made to the gram- 
mars of the New Testament, especially to the 
admirable treatment of the subject in Butt- 



236 THE AR1 OF INTERPRETING. 

maim. 1 Suffice it to say that it has become 
greatly modified from its original strong illative 
force, and that this fact materially affects the 
interpretation of many passages. 

In the Old Testament, attention to the gram- 
matical connection is even more imperatively 
necessary than in the New, because the lan- 
o'uao-e is far less rich in inflections, and the con- 
struction is often only made out by means of 
the connection. Thus the tenses of the verbs, 
other than that of the leading verb of the para- 
graph, are usually dependent upon their connec- 
tion, and the sense would often be changed to 
nonsense were this neglected. In the very first 
chapter of the Bible the subsequent verbs con- 
nected by the i are determined in their temporal 
signification by the s^S of verse 1 and by the 
other perfects in the chapter. Moreover, the 
narrative of that chapter continues through 
three verses of the next ; while at Gen. ii. 4 a 
fresh narrative begins, undoubtedly originally a 
different document, giving an account of the 
creation from a different point of view. 2 

1 A Grammar of the N. T. Greek, by A. Buttmann, author- 
ized translation, by J. Henry Thayer. 

2 [This may be the best place to note that the connection is 
often obscured by the unfortunate division of the chapters. 
Thus Gen. xxvii. 40 mentions the stratagem of Rebecca to 
remove her favorite Jacob out of the way of Esau's revenge ; 
while the following verses, assigned to chapter xxviii., give the 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 237 

It must be remembered that the sensitiveness 
of the Hebrew and of the Aryan languages to 
the grammatical proprieties is shown in different 
ways. Thus in Hebrew the agreements of gen- 
der and number are not seldom violated, feminine 
nouns being nominative to masculine verbs, and 
vice versa, and the singular and plural being 
construed together without any obvious reason. 
Sometimes it is possible in these cases to sup- 
pose a corruption of the text, as in 1 Chron. ii. 
46, 48, where the verb ib\ to hear, is construed 
with the names of two of Caleb's concubines first 
in the feminine, then in the masculine, and then 

story of Isaac's sending him away in consequence. Ex. vi. 1 
is the Divine answer to Moses' complaint in v. 22, 23, and 
must be taken in connection with it. Ex. vii. 1, 2, in the 
same way, is God's answer to the objection of Moses that he 
was " of uncircumcised lips." The appointment of the Le- 
vites, Num. xviii. 1-7, by the same faulty division of the chap- 
ters, is separated from its immediate occasion, in the murmur- 
ing" of the people because holier duties were required of them 
than they were competent to fulfill (xvii. 12, 13). In Deut. 
xxix. the first verse refers back and forms the conclusion of 
the address which ends here ; this verse, therefore, belongs 
with chap, xxviii., and does not form the heading to the fresh 
discourse which begins with xxix. 2. These instances have 
all been selected from the Pentateuch ; similar ones may eas- 
ily be found in almost any of the other books. As a single 
example may be mentioned the introduction of a fourth chap- 
ter in the book of Malachi ; this division, which has been 
introduced from the LXX. and the Vulgate, but does not 
exist in the Hebrew, sadly mars the unity of this great final 
prophecy of the old dispensation.] 



238 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

again in the feminine. But often such a sup- 
position is inadmissible, as Isa. xxxii. 11, *crvn 
niaDMB?, " tremble ye careless women " ; cf . Gen. 
xiii. 6, Psalms cxix. 155, Judg. xiii. 12, etc. 
Sometimes both number and gender are wrong 
at once, as 1 Kings xi. 3, D^fffa iVVT 1 !, " and 
there were to him wives " ; cf. Psalms lvii. 2, 
Mic. ii. 6, etc. 

Yet it is not to be supposed from this circum- 
stance that Hebrew grammar was in general a 
loose and uncertain thing ; on the contrary, it had 
its fixed laws, and these, when applicable, must 
determine interpretation absolutely, as may be 
seen on looking into any good modern commen- 
tary. Thus, in Isa. viii. 21, the Hebrew will not 
allow the translation of the A. V., " curse their 
king and their God ; " for regard must be had 
to the prepositions in vnbs^ i^btt?, which re- 
quire the translation "by its king and its God." 1 
In 1 Kings vi. 15-18 there are two instances of 
the same misunderstanding of the grammatical 
construction by the translators of the A. V., 
which materially affect the idea of the structure 
of the temple. In verse 15 it is said, that Solo- 
mon " built the walls of the house within with 
boards of cedar, both the floor of the house, and 
the walls of the ceiling ; " but, on the other 
hand, it is said, in the latter part of the same 
verse, that he " covered the floor of the house 

\} See Rev. Ver. . Isa. viii. 21.] 



USE OF THE OEIGINAL LANGUAGES. 239 

with planks of fir." Here appears a plain con- 
tradiction within the limits of a single verse. 
Again, in verse 16 it is said, that u he built 
twenty cubits on the sides of the house, both the 
floor and the walls with boards of cedar." This 
is sufficiently unintelligible in itself ; but in 
verse 18 we are told, " there was no stone seen," 
and in verse 2, that the height of the house was 
" thirty cubits ; " the question at once occurs, 
how could a cedar ceiling of twenty cubits cover 
up a wall of thirty cubits so that no stone should 
be seen ? The difficulty is at once removed by 
an examination of the Hebrew, which at the 
same time brings out an often unobserved feature 
in the structure of the temple. The expression, 
"both the floor . . . and the walls" in each 
case is in Hebrew rriTft-TO . . . 37|7?jTO (except 
that in the second case the article is placed be- 
fore each of the nouns, and that in verse 16 the 
words " of the ceiling " are to be supplied from 
verse 15). Now there is but one possible way of 
translating this grammatically : he built from 
the floor of the house unto the walls of the ceil- 
ing, i. e., he covered the whole side walls from 
floor to ceiling with cedar so that the stone was 
entirely concealed. As the height of this was 
twenty cubits, while the exterior height was 
thirty cubits, it follows that there was a differ- 
ence of ten cubits between the exterior and the 



240 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

interior height. This may have been taken up 
either, as Fergusson thinks, by the slope of the 
roof ; 2 or, if the roof was flat after the analogy 
of all oriental architecture, there was a room 
above. But instances of the need of attention 
to the grammatical structure need not be mul- 
tiplied either for the Hebrew or the Greek ; it 
is an obvious requirement in the translation of 
any language. 

The older interpreters were more often in 
fault in not observing the exact grammatical 
form of particular words, and it is in this point 
that modern exegesis, though sometimes pushed 
too far, has made some of its chief advances. 
Here again the Hebrew forms often require to 
be helped out by the context, on account of the 
poverty of that language in inflections. Thus 
the so-called perfect tense has to do duty both 
as a Greek aorist in simple narration, in such 
passages as Gen. iii. 16, igH = he said, and as 
a Greek perfect, denoting an action with con- 
sequences continuing to the time of the speaker 
or writer, as in Gen. xxxii. 11, \"T s n = I have 
become two bands. So also the other, or im- 
perfect, tense, is used to express a variety not 
only of temporal but also of modal significa- 
tions. The use and the meaning of these tenses, 
in their various connections, is a serious study, 
1 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, article Temple. 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 241 

and although grammarians have undoubtedly 
insisted far too much, both here and in Greek, 
upon a nicety which is not to be found in other 
writers and in other languages, yet the inter- 
preter cannot afford to neglect their normal 
value, which he will find to be also their actual 
value wherever emphasis is placed upon them. 
Thus, in such a passage as Acts xix. 6, one can- 
not fail to see that the imperfects iXdXow and 
i-n-pocfirJTevov forbid the idea that the gifts of 
tongues and prophecy were only momentary, 
and they show that the newly baptized were 
accustomed to exercise them. 1 So, too, while the 
aorist may be interchanged with the imperfect 
or the perfect in various places in which no 
especial stress is to be laid on the one or the 
other (as rjvSoKrjaa in Matt. iii. 17 ; UaOia-av, xxiii. 

2 ; ovk acf>rJK€^ John viil. 29 ; ovSels . . . i/jLtarjcrev^ 

Eph. v. 29, etc.), and where only an excessive 
grammatical subtlety can give the tense its 
appropriate meaning ; yet, usually, it has the dis- 
tinct force of accomplishment which is not to be 
neglected in interpretation. Thus in Luke xvii. 
8 the ews <f)dy(D koll irioy is quite correctly rendered 
in the A. V., " Till I have eaten and drunken ; " 
and the distinction between the aorist and im- 
perfect is finely marked in Luke viii. 23, irXeov- 

Td)v Se avTwv a<f>v7rvu}<T€' koll Kari/Sr] XatAai/r els ttjv 
I 1 Possibly the imperfect has here its inceptive force.] 



242 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

Xl/jlvtjv, kcll (jvv€7r\rjpovvro /cat iiavhvvevov, where the 
A. V. fails to preserve the distinction. On the 
other hand, the essential idea of the present 
(except as modified in the indicative by the idea 
of actual present time) and of the imperfect is 
" action as a matter of process," and this idea 
should often control the interpretation. Thus 
in Matt, xxv, 8, o-fiivvvvTcu does not indicate that 
the lamps " are gone out " (A. V.), but that 
they burn dimly and are just going out. James 
iii. 18, the o-n-etpeTat shows that the future har- 
vest of righteousness is now having its seed 
sown in peace by those that make peace. It is 
particularly important to bear in mind this 
sense of a continuing process in passages where, 
by neglecting it, a doctrinal significance has 
been imagined which does not really exist ; as in 
Acts ii. 47, where the o-u^ofilvovs marks, not those 
who have already been, but those who are in 
process of being, saved. So also in 1 John v. 

18, 7ras 6 yeyevvrjfxevos e/c rov 6eov ov)( d/zaprdVa. 

Sometimes this process is shown by the circum- 
stances to be incomplete, and then becomes sim- 
ply " procedure towards an action," as in Luke 

i. 59, iKaXovv avro • . . Za^apCav ; Matt. iii. 14, 
6 Se 'Iwavvrjs 8l€ku>\v€V avrov ; Heb. XI. 17, kcli tov 

fxovoyevrj irpoalfaptv. Yet it would be quite idle 
to say that this idea of process is to be seen 
in every instance of A cyan/ or eAeyc that occurs. 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 243 

So also the aorist is often finely distinguished 
from the perfect, and the interpreter must have 
regard to the distinction, as in Col. i. 16, lv aurw 

i«TL(j6r] t<x 7rdvTa . . . tol Trdvra Sl clvtov kcu €is olvtov 
€KTLCTTai \ 1 John i. 2, rj £a)?) £<j)avepw6r], /cat ecopa/ca- 

pev kol fxaprvpovjjiev. Yet, on the other hand, per- 
fects are used for aorists, and aorists for per- 
fects. In addition to instances of the latter 
already given may be mentioned Heb. viii. 1, 

e\0[JLev dp-^tepea os iKaOtcrev lv Se^td, k. t. A., and Mark 

iii. 21, i££<TTr]. Of its use for the pluperfect, 
even in a leading clause, Matt. xiv. 3 and Mark 
vi. 17 may suffice ; for, however this may be 
explained by supposing the writer to have trans- 
ferred himself in thought as a narrator to a past 
time, yet, as we read the narrative, the sense 
expressed by the aorist is pluperfect. 

The attempt has been sometimes made to find 
evidence for important doctrinal statements on 
the use of the aorist, which it is impossible to sus- 
tain in view of the laxity of the New Testament 
usage. Thus the prayer of Paul for Onesiphorus, 
in 2 Tim. i. 18, has been brought forward as a 
justification of prayers for the dead on the sup- 
position that Onesiphorus could not have been 
living at the time, and that supposition is based 
upon the use of the aorists in verses 16, 17. It 
is certainly clear from this passage, and from 2 
Tim. iv. 19, that he was not at the time with " his 



244 THE AET OF INTEEPBETING. 

household." He may have been absent some- 
where else, or he may have been, as Chrysostom 
and Theodoret suppose, with Paul at Rome. 
Altogether forgetting the former possibility, it 
has been urged against the latter 1 that it is in- 
consistent with the aorists aval/vgev, iiraicrxovO-q, 
and i^rjrrjo-ev, especially in connection with the 
y€v6fji€vo<s iv 'Pro/x^ of verse IT. But, indepen- 
dently of the fact that the Greek writers, Chrys- 
ostom and Theodoret, did not feel this difficulty, 
it is completely met by the fact that, in the case 
of Stephanas and his household, Paul speaks in 
the same way in 1 Cor. xvi. 15-18. Stephanas 
was certainly with him at the time (verse 17), 
and his household was certainly living (verse 
15) ; yet in regard to both he uses the aorists 

€Ta£ai', dv€7^A?7p<DC^eI , , and aviiravaav. It IS plain 

that he does not use the aorist with sufficient 
nicety to allow of the proposed inference. 

The general conclusion on the whole subject 
of the use of the tenses is this : It is insufficient 
to show that the tense used has, on strictly gram- 
matical considerations, always a certain force ; 
it must also appear that the attention of the 
writer was sufficiently drawn to the tense to use 
it in its normal sense. Otherwise, within obvi- 
ous limits, he may have used it without any 
especial care, as is continually done by popular 

1 See, e. g., Alford in loco. 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 245 

writers, in all languages. The two cases can 
generally be well enough distinguished by ob- 
serving whether the tense actually used yields 
any especially appropriate sense in its connec- 
tion; if so, the presumption is that the writer 
intended exactly that sense, but even this must 
be checked by his use of it elsewhere under 
similar circumstances. 

Essentially the same things may be said of 
the tenses in Hebrew, with the proviso already 
made, that this language being far less rich in 
inflections, the exact meaning intended must 
often be otherwise determined. The temporal 
and modal distinctions of perfect, imperfect, and 
participle are sometimes quite obliterated, as in 
Lev. xi. 4-6, where the three are used (nons, 
D^r, D^hd^) interchangeably, in reference to 
the same distinction among the animals, while 
another corresponding distinction is expressed 
throughout (nbsn) by the same form. Yet, 
as in the Greek, the distinctions of the tenses 
are observed whenever they are significant and 
require to be carefully noted by the interpreter. 
After giving so much space to the Greek tenses 
it is impossible to enter further here into this 
delicate and difficult subject, and the reader 
must be referred to the standard grammatical 
treatises. 1 

1 Especial reference should be made to the elaborate little 



246 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

Finally, the exegete, having determined the 
connection and the grammatical construction, 
must fix upon the precise meaning of the indi- 
vidual words. In all languages there are many 
words used in somewhat different senses. There 
are not only primitive and derivative meanings, 
as in the familiar English word ^>os£, but there 
are also often nice shades of difference in sense 
which it requires no little care to discriminate. 
Thus the words 0732 and i/a'x*? require careful in- 
vestigation ; for while the former varies in mean- 
ing from the dead body (as in Lev. xxii. 4, Hag. 
ii. 13, etc.) to that higher nature with which 
man is to love and serve God (as in Deut. iv. 
29, 1 Kings ii. 4), and most commonly expresses 
the animal life, and ijrvxrj also (in contradistinc- 
tion to irvevfxa and o-cip£) means the same animal 
life ; yet both of them have several nicer shades 
of meaning which must be determined by the 
connection in which they are used. A word, too, 
may have a twofold sense, and yet one of these 
senses replace the other chronologically, or at 
least the secondary sense only come into use 
along with the primary after the latter has long 

book, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew, by S. R. 
Driver. A fund of information and scholarship may be found 
in this, though it may well be questioned whether the author 
has not pushed his grammatical hypotheses sometimes quite 
beyond the basis of his evidence. [Vide also, especially, 
Kautzsch's new edition of Gesenius (18S9). Ed.] 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 247 
stood alone. Thus nstsn means both sin and a 

T ~ 

sin offering ; but in the latter sense it is never 
found before the technical language of the law 
in Ex. xxix. 14, after which, both senses are com- 
mon. Great confusion and difficulty has arisen 
from the translation of the similar word DtPM 

T T 

iii Lev. v. 6. The word bears the two meanings 
of trespass and trespass offering ; but here, in 
a section (iv. 1-v. 13) wholly relating to the 
sin offering in distinction from the trespass of- 
fering (which follows in the next section (v. 14- 
vi. 7) ) it must be rendered trespass. In this 
case the translators were probably led into the 
error by the corresponding double sense of dfxap- 
ria in the LXX. The word jns is probably 
another instance of a primary and secondary 
signification. The common, almost universal, 
meaning of the word is priest ; yet since origi- 
nally the civil and ecclesiastical headship of a 
people were vested in the same person, it came 
to bear also the sense of prince, and is so used 
a few times in Scripture, as in 2 Sam. viii. 18 ; 
xx. 26 ; 1 Kings iv. 5 ; x and perhaps also Ex. 
ii. 16, iii. 1, xviii. 1. A good instance in He- 
brew of a word with very different derivative 
meanings from the same root is v\iw. The 
root signifies to burn, and hence comes to be 

1 In favor of the sense priest in these places, see Gesenius, 
Thesaurus, in verbo. 



248 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

used in Num. xxi. 8 for an exceedingly venom- 
ous or " fiery " serpent, and frequently in the 
prophets for an exalted order of beings who sur- 
round the unutterable glory of the Majesty on 
high. It is true that Gesenius 1 derives the latter 
from another root of the same form ; but there is 
no evidence of the existence of this other root, 
and lexicographers generally consider them the 
same. Abundant further examples may be seen 
in the lexicons. 

Words have also oftentimes a peculiar sense 
in Scripture, different from that attached to 
them in profane writings. This remark applies 
only to the New Testament ; for it is only here 
that we have the literature which can serve as a 
means of comparison. But here it is evident 
that a revelation bringing new truths and new 
ideas into the world and making use of an old 
language, must either coin new words altogether, 
as has often been done, or else must use the 
old words in a somewhat new sense. Familiar 

instances of this are Aoyog, StKaiocrvvrj, fSaaiXda 

(in connection with rov 0eor, rwv ovpavwv), IkkXyj- 
ata, 7raXtyyev€(TLa, aidaTacris, and many more. But 
there are many words belonging to a somewhat 
different class which will well repay the careful 
attention of the exegete. In James i. 27 we 
read according to the A. V., " Pure religion and 

1 Thesaurus, in verbo. 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 249 

undefiled before God and the Father is this," and 
the inference has been drawn that religion not 
merely requires, but itself consists in, blameless- 
ness of life and the active duties of humanity ; 
but the word for " religion " is Oprja-Kta^ and 
means not so much religion in itself, as in its 
outward expression and garb — what is techni- 
cally known as its cultus. The true meaning 
of the word is easily learned by comparing the 
passages in which it occurs : in Acts xxvi. 5 it is 
used of " the Jew's religion 9 ' ; in Col. ii. 18 of the 
cultus of angels ; in James i. 26, in immediate 
connection with the text and in the same sense, 
while the adjective OprjorKos is also used in the 
same verse with a similar meaning. The Syriac 
version has correctly apprehended the meaning. 
The word -rrdax^ is used in the New Testament 
in a variety of significations. (1) For the pas- 
chal lamb (Matt. xxvi. 17 ; Mark xiv. 12, 14 ; 
Luke xxii. 7, 11, 15, and metaphorically 1 Cor. 
v. 7 ; but in this sense exclusively it is not cer- 
tain that it ever occurs in John). (2) For the 
paschal supper generally (Matt. xxvi. 18, 19; 
Luke xxii. 8, 13 ; Heb. xi. 28, etc), it being 
evident that these two closely related senses are 
easily interchanged. (3) For the whole paschal 
festival of the seven days of unleavened bread 
(Matt. xxvi. 2 ; Luke ii. 41, xxii. 1 ; John ii. 
23). (4) Indefinitely, so that it may be under- 



250 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

stood either as in 2 or as in 3, and yet more 
naturally in that of 3 when that meaning has 
once been established (John ii. 13 ; vi. 4 ; xi. 
55 ; xii. 1 ; xiii. 1). In John xviii. 28, xix. 14, 
the meaning has long been in dispute, and it is 
important to the chronology of our Lord's pas- 
sion, as well as in other ways, to determine the 
sense in these passages. It will be observed 
that all the other passages in John fall under 
either 3 or 4, and that all under 4 are in John. 
Often as he uses the word there is no instance, 
outside of the passages in question, in which he 
can be proved to use it in any narrower sense 
than that of the whole seven days' feast ; the pre- 
sumption is, therefore, that he so uses it in these 
cases also. But the meaning in both these cases 
is definitely settled by the context. In xviii. 28 
the Jews would not enter the prsetorium " lest 
they should be defiled ; but that they might eat 
the 7rttcrxa." Now we know from the law that 
there was no defilement which could prevent the 
eating of the paschal lamb except that which 
arose from the touch of a dead body — a defile- 
ment lasting for seven days (Num. ix. 6, 7, 11, 
13). Except for this and for absence on a jour- 
ney, the law imperatively required every Israelite 
to partake (Num. ix. 10-14). Entering Pilate's 
pnetorium would not, then, have prevented their 
eating the paschal lamb, but would have inter- 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 251 

fered with their joining in the sacrificial feasts of 
the following days. The conclusion is then clear 
that this must have been after the paschal supper 
(with which the whole feast began), and, hence, 
that Trao-xa has here the same sense as generally 
in this Gospel. 

The other instance (xix. 14) depends for its 
determination on another word with which it is 
connected, 7rapao-Kevrj tov Tra<jx a > which requires it- 
self to be determined. Does it mean the Prepa- 
ration-day for the Passover, in which case it 
must precede it, or the Preparation-day of the 
Passover, in which case it occurred during the 
feast ? This is easily seen. The day preceding 
the paschal supper is always expressed in other 
ways (Matt. xxvi. 17, Trpwrrj 7w a&fAwv; Mark 

xiv. 12, 7rp. rjfxipa r. d£. ; Luke xxii. 7, rjpepa r. d£.) ; 
while, on the other hand, the ordinary term for 
the day before the Sabbath was precisely this 
7rapao-KevYj (Matt, xxvii. 62 ; Mark xv. 42, where 
it is defined ; Luke xxiii. 54, rj/j-ipa ty Trapao-Ktvrjs, 
koI crdfifiaTOV eVe^wcrKe ; John xix. 31, 42, in both 
which the sense is clear). There seems, there- 
fore, no reason to doubt that rj 7rapaorKevr] tov 7rd(rxa 

means as distinctly the day before the Sabbath 
of the Passover week as we should by saying 
" the Friday of the Passover." 

Good illustrations of the introduction of new 
words, or of the modification in sense of words 



252 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

already in use, may be found in aydirrj and <£ t ,\- 
aSeA(£ta. The former was coined for use in the 
Septuagint, and thence adopted into the New- 
Testament and used in a much higher sense. 
In the latter, according to Cremer, 1 " It denotes 
the love which chooses its object with decision 
of will, so that it becomes self-denying or com- 
passionate devotion to and for the same." Such 
a word in such a sense became necessary from 
the elevation given in the New Testament to 
the verb ayairav, and from the word thus used 
came the technical plural aydirat = love-feasts, 
which were practiced among the early Chris- 
tians. 3><AaS€A(£ia, on the other hand, was a 
word already in use in classic authors for family 
affection, and it might seem that the New Tes- 
tament writers should have used <j>ika.v6pwiria ; but 
this would have fallen far below the sense which 
they intended to convey, and by using </uAaSeA(/>ia, 
when a classical author would have required only 
<j)i\av6pioTTLa, they exalted the affection of which 
they spoke to a height of which classical religion 
had no knowledge, and for which classical lan- 
guage had no word. 

But few words need to be added here to what 
has already been said of the usefulness of the 
study of the Semitic languages, especially the 

1 Cremer, Biblico-theological Lexicon of N. T. Greek. Trans- 
lated from the 2d German edition by W. Urwick. 



USE OF THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES. 253 

Syriac. The value of this language lies particu- 
larly in the study of its idioms and forms of ex- 
pression, which both supply illustrations for the 
scanty literature of the Hebrew, and also furnish, 
in the New Testament, examples of the usage in 
other connections of phrases with which we are 
made familiar in the Gospels, but which have no 
corresponding use in Greek. 

Thus the phrase " Son of man " is met with 
in the books of those prophets who, during the 
captivity in Babylon, were especially exposed to 
the influence of Aramaic expressions. It occurs 
once in Daniel, but with such frequency (ninety- 
two times) in Ezekiel as to suggest inquiry as 
to its meaning. In Syriac, )Laj^.^ is simply 
equivalent to man and is constantly so used. A 
striking instance of this is 1 Cor. xv. 45 where it 
is applied to Adam himself. It may have been 
for this reason that it was chosen by our Lord 
for His own distinctive title. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE USE OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 

Sufficient illustrations of the way in which 
the interpretation of the New Testament is af- 
fected by Textual Criticism have already been 
given. It is obviously waste labor to undertake 
the interpretation of any passage until we know 
what the passage really is. The interpreter 
should therefore always have before him, as the 
basis of his work, a good critical text. It will 
be far better if this is supplemented with a col- 
lection of various readings, and with the authori- 
ties for them. The interpreter is not often to 
determine the text for himself ; only in cases 
where the authorities are somewhat evenly bal- 
anced, and the critical editors differ in their con- 
clusions, can the exegete safely exercise his own 
judgment upon the text ; but it often happens 
that various readings, while not of sufficient 
weight to justify an alteration of the text, yet 
testify to an early understanding of its meaning 
which may be of importance. Thus in Luke ii. 
forty-nine various meanings might be given to 
the iv rot? tov 7rarpo5 jjlov, but, as early as the Cure- 



THE USE OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 255 

tonian Syriac (and also in several of the fa- 
thers), we have the var. led. *v tw oIk<2, and, while 
this has no claim to be received as the true text, 
it has thus valuable support as the sense which 
ought to be given to the text as it stands. In 
John i. 18 the text is fairly doubtful between 
6 fiovoyevrjs vlos and povoyevrjs Oeos, and although on 
the whole the preponderance of evidence is for 
the former, 1 yet the occurrence of the latter in 
the earliest and best MSS. O, B, C*, L, 33) is a 
weighty testimony of antiquity to the view then 
held of the character of the utos. Something the 
same thing may be said of the readings Kvpiov 
and Oeov in Acts xx. 28, 2 and of many other like 
passages. The interpreter can never afford to 
overlook such evidences of current early inter- 
pretations, while he may be satisfied that the 
text itself is settled beyond reasonable question. 
In the Old Testament the interpreter is forced 
to rely much more upon his own sagacity in the 
matter of textual criticism, and that especially 
in regard to conjectural emendations of the text. 
The versions will here also often supply inter- 
pretations, but it generally remains more than 
doubtful, on the one hand, whether their inter- 

1 See article by Dr. E. Abbot in Bibliotheca Sacra for Oct., 
1861, and appendix to the same prepared at the request of 
the American Committee of Biblical Revision. 

2 See article by the same in Bibliotheca Sacra for April, 1876. 



256 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

pretations, differing from the received text, did 
not arise from a misunderstanding of the He- 
brew rather than from a difference in the text, 
and, on the other hand, when they agree with 
the existing text, whether it may not have be- 
come corrupted long before they were made. 
Several instances of probable conjectural emen- 
dation have already been mentioned in a former 
chapter ; a few additional ones of a different 
character may here be cited. In Ezek. i. 4 our 
version reads, " a whirlwind came out of the 
north ; a great cloud," etc., where we are struck 
with the abruptness of the second clause which, 
as it stands, has no finite verb. The present 
Hebrew is HK3 mSD ; but by transferring the 
final n of the first word to the befiiniring: of 
the second it would read TWPBn 137D = a whirl- 
wind brought a great cloud out of the north, 
etc. Remembering that in the early manu- 
scripts there was no division between the words, 
such a conjectural emendation seems highly 
probable, although in this case it is of no great 
importance in itself. In the account of the 
Levite, who served the tribe of Dan as a priest 
of idolatry at Laish, in Judges xviii. 30, his 
name is given as "Jonathan, the son of Ger- 
shoin, the son of Manasseh." By leaving out 
the 2 from the last word and chang-ino; the vowel 
pointing, instead of nt£?E we should have nttfB 



THE USE OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 257 

= Moses. This can hardly be called a conjec- 
tural emendation, since not only do some of the 
present Hebrew MSS. read Moses, but the 3 is 
marked as suspicious by being placed above the 
line, and the Talmud ists acknowledge that it 
has been inserted out of respect to Moses. All 
the ancient versions, however, except the Vul- 
gate, read Manasseh ; but several manuscripts 
of the Septuagint have Moses, and this was 
placed as a correction in Origen's Hexapla. 
Moses had a son Gershom (Ex. ii. 22), but no 
such name is recorded as among the sons of 
Manasseh. 

In Ezek. iii. 15 the present Hebrew text has 
ltt?W\ which is so difficult to understand that 

■• •• IT* 

the Masorets have noted as the K'ri SB?M% which 
has been followed in the A. V. " and I sat," and 
is also adopted in the Chaldee and Vulgate. 
There is a variation here also in the manu- 
scripts. The sense, however, seems flat, and 
the conjectural emendation of Hitzig, altering 
only the vowel points, seems far better, ntTbn = 
"and I saw where they dwelt." 

In 1 Kings i. 18 the A. V., following the 
present Hebrew text, reads " and now, my lord 
the king, thou knowest it not ; " but all the 
ancient versions and two hundred manuscripts, 
with the early printed editions, read nnS} in- 
stead of nnin, giving the needed emphasis on 



258 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

the pronoun which the context seems to require. 
Here the emendation seems fully justified. 

In Lev. viii. 14 it is said " Aaron and his 
sons laid their hands," where the verb in the 
Hebrew text is in the singular ; in verse 18 the 
same expression recurs, but the verb is there in 
the plural. It is put in the plural also in the 
former case in the Samaritan and Syriac, and 
doubtless w 7 as originally so written. 

These instances, several of them purposely 
chosen as of small importance in themselves, 
may suffice to show the value of conjectural 
criticism in the interpretation of the Old Testa- 
ment. If the proposed emendation has any 
strong probability in its favor, it will almost 
always be found to have been already incor- 
porated into some of the ancient versions or to 
be read in some of the manuscripts ; still this is 
not always the case. In general it may be said 
that such emendation should not be resorted to 
unless the text itself, as it stands, suggests that it 
is corrupt, and unless the proposed emendation 
is really required to remove a difficulty, or at 
least to give an obviously better sense. Regard 
should also be had to the analogy of the known 
corruptions of the text in manuscripts of the 
New Testament. The same sort of errors were 
likely to be committed by the copyists in the 
one case as in the other — due allowance being 



THE USE OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 259 

made for the peculiarities of the Hebrew letters. 
The similarities between some of those letters in 
form has doubtless been an important factor in 
the variation of the text ; but this can apply 
only to corruptions introduced since the adop- 
tion of those letters, which was probably at 
the time of the Babylonish captivity. Investi- 
gation is needed in regard to the forms of let- 
ters in earlier use, and the errors which may 
have been introduced by their means. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 

Supposing the interpreter to be prepared for 
his work, and to know what to do in order com- 
pletely and truly to ascertain the meaning of his 
text, it is well to point out the actual process he 
should go through in his interpretation. This 
must vary somewhat with the character of the 
passage he has taken in hand, but certain tilings 
are common to them all. Among these we place, 
first, earnest prayer that he may be guided 
aright, and may be led to a true exposition of 
God's word, such as shall bring out neither more 
nor less nor otherwise than the inspiring Spirit 
meant to teach. We place this first on any pos- 
sible view that may be taken of the nature and 
effect of prayer. If one cannot rise above its 
subjective effect, yet this subjective effect is 
most important in impressing upon the inter- 
preter the solemnity of the work before him, and 
the necessity of bringing to it a fair mind, and 
of dealing truly and honestly with the language 
he seeks to explain. It reminds him of the 
necessity of calling to his aid every available 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORE. 261 

help, and doing what he has to do thoroughly 
and in the fear of God. But no one who has 
the general knowledge of the Scriptures required 
in his preparation, and confidence in them as 
the word of God, can acquiesce in so low a view 
of the efficacy of prayer. He must believe that 
in answer to his request for guidance he will 
be rewarded with something more than a merely 
subjective effect. It is not, indeed, to be im- 
agined that every one who asks to be taught 
the true meaning of the Divine word, will in 
consequence be immediately guided to an in- 
fallible interpretation of every difficult passage ; 
for then it would be impossible that earnest 
Christian commentators should differ in their 
explanations. Prejudice and imperfect informa- 
tion, and all human obstacles to a right under- 
standing of the text render this impossible. But 
it is to be expected that in answer to the hearty 
prayer for guidance an influence will be exerted 
upon the interpreter to lead him in the right 
way, and that, however he may sometimes, per- 
haps often, by his own fault prevent that in- 
fluence from having its legitimate control, it will 
be a true factor in his work, leading him to- 
wards the truth, ever more and more powerfully 
as he accustoms himself to be controlled by its 
guidance. 

This, then, is to be considered as always the 



262 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

first act of the interpreter ; and this, if it be a 
true act of the spirit, necessarily involves some- 
thing at least of those various personal qualifica- 
tions which have already been discussed. 

The next act must be a more or less uncon- 
scious, but nevertheless a very real, one, — the 
bringing to bear upon the particular point to be 
considered a general knowledge of the Scrip- 
tures. Sometimes this may require a little period 
of definite thought and reflection ; but usually it 
will be the spontaneous and scarcely conscious 
action of the mind of the well furnished inter- 
preter. Still, however familiar one may be with 
the holy volume, there will often be details of 
history or of prophecy, of legislation or of poetry 
which have a bearing upon the point to be con- 
sidered, and which the interpreter should make 
sure that he has rightly in his mind before pro- 
ceeding further. Is he treating, e. g., of 1 Cor. 
x. 2, which speaks of the Israelites as " all bap- 
tized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea?" 
Let him be sure that he is thoroughly familiar 
with all the historical circumstances connected 
with the cloud and with the passage of the sea, 
and if his recollection is in any respect dim or 
uncertain, let him revive his knowledge of the 
history before going further. But a general 
knowledge of Scripture is of still more impor- 
tance in its control over the character of the in- 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 263 

terpretation than in its bearing upon particular 
facts which may be mentioned ; and this, as re- 
peatedly urged, must be already in the mind of 
the interpreter exerting over him an influence 
which may not always be consciously recognized 
at the moment. 

He has next to consider the particular book 
in which his passage occurs ; its character and 
general purpose, the period when it was written, 
the person by whom it was written, and the peo- 
ple for whom it was primarily intended. This 
will bring before him not only the human mould 
in which the Divine truth has been cast in this 
particular case ; but will also show whatever 
there may have been in the time and the circum- 
stances to limit such full and clear expressions 
of Divine truth as occur elsewhere. It is im- 
portant always to bear in mind the progressive 
character of revelation, advancing gradually in 
the fullness of its declaration of truth as men 
were educated to bear it by means of its own 
declarations given less perfectly in the earlier 
times of spiritual darkness. Hence the position 
of any book in the line of a progressive revela- 
tion must always be an important element in its 
interpretation. This is true not only of great 
intervals of time, but even of very short periods 
when those periods have been times of great 
advance in religious knowledge. Thus the Gos- 



264 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

pels and the Epistles are separated from each 
other by the sacrifice of Calvary, the resurrec- 
tion and ascension, and the day of Pentecost. 
It would be manifestly improper to expect the 
same explicitness of doctrinal teaching in what 
went before as in what came after these events. 
Take, as a single illustration, the declaration of 
our Lord on His last visit to the temple when 
" certain Greeks " sought an interview with 
Him : " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto me" (John xii. 32). These 
words, as they stand, are certainly somewhat 
dim and enigmatical. They evidently hint at 
what could not then be fully told, and they are 
to be interpreted in view of the necessary re- 
straint which then existed, and prevented a full 
and explicit teaching of all that was meant to be 
conveyed. Compare with it the same teaching 
at a later date : It seemed good " that in Him 
should all fulness dwell : and having made peace 
through the blood of His cross, by Him to rec- 
oncile all things unto Himself ; by Him, I say, 
whether they be things in earth, or things in 
heaven" (Col. i. 19, 20). 

The personality of the writer and the circum- 
stances under which he wrote are sometimes 
obviously of great importance to the right under- 
standing of his writing. Paul's glowing con- 
fidence, " I have fought a good fight, I have 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 265 

finished my course, I have kept the faith : hence- 
forth there is laid up for me a crown of right- 
eousness " (2 Tim. iv. 7, 8), would have been 
out of place at an earlier period of his life than 
when the time of his departure was at hand ; 
and the interpreter needs to associate it very 
intimately with that time, that he may not leave 
it to be understood as a fitting expression for 
the ordinary Christian in the ordinary course of 
life. Jeremiah's cursing of the day of his birth 
(Jer. xx. 14-18), and Elijah's prayer that he 
might die (1 Kings xix. 4) are to be treated in 
connection with the whole lives and with the cir- 
cumstances of those prophets at the time, and it 
is also only in view of these that the Divine 
dealing with them in reply can be properly un- 
derstood. 

When the writer cannot be certainly known, 
as in the case of several of the historical books 
of the Old Testament, yet from the book as a 
whole enough can be gathered of his character 
and purposes to aid materially in the under- 
standing of particular passages in his writing. 
And in the New Testament, also, there is one 
Epistle — that to the Hebrews — of which we 
may not be able to determine the author ; but 
we may know certainly that he was a Christian 
Jew, seeking to convince his fellow Jews, on the 
ground of their own Scriptures, of the temporary 



266 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

character of their dispensation and of its being 
superseded by the greatly superior dispensation 
of the Gospel. These facts enable us to inter- 
pret readily and without hesitation several pas- 
sages (such, e. g., as vii. 3) which, if they stood 
by themselves, might seem either obscure or 
capable of bearing quite a different sense. 

The interpreter will also more or less uncon- 
sciously bring to bear upon the passage before 
him his general knowledge of geography, of his- 
tory, of archaeology, and of science. If the text 
stands in a special relation to any of these, in 
matters in which his knowledge is not altogether 
clear, he needs to look up such points before 
proceeding further. A matter of mere detail, 
which easily escapes from the memory, is easily 
ascertained ; but if more than this is required, 
the labor of informing himself will soon con- 
vince the student of the absolute necessity of a 
full preparation in such matters before taking 
in hand the work of interpretation. At all 
events this must be done, and thoroughly done, 
before any satisfactory result can be expected. 
Many grievous slips of even famous commenta- 
tors might be pointed out as warning examples 
of its neglect. For such neglect there is far 
less excuse now, when the means of acquiring 
information have been so greatly multiplied, 
than there was a few generations ago. It is em- 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 267 

inently necessary that the interpreter in these 
respects should be, in the current phraseology of 
the day, " abreast of his time." 

All that has thus far been spoken of may be 
considered as in some sense preliminary work, 
and is simply bringing to bear upon a particular 
passage what has already been said of the prep- 
aration and work of the interpreter in general. 
Now he must look to his text. If in the Greek, 
he must examine it in a critical edition, and if 
he finds the authorities for it clear, he can then 
accept it at once as the true text on which he is 
to comment. If he find the authorities pretty 
evenly balanced, and the critical editors divided 
in their judgment, he must then exercise his 
own judgment, either coming to a positive con- 
clusion, or accepting the alternative readings as 
having each a fair claim to acceptance. It is 
very seldom that he will be brought to this 
dilemma; but when it occurs, he must accept 
the facts as they are, and not as he might like 
to have them. In the Old Testament he will 
always do well to compare the ancient versions, 
but he cannot accept their authority as either 
positively establishing, or positively correcting, 
the text as it stands. They only constitute a 
reason for further inquiry, and sometimes give a 
prima facie presumption on the one side or the 
other, and this presumption is to be increased or 



268 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

diminished by the general knowledge the inter- 
preter has already brought to his work. Quite 
commonly, however, the reasons, if any exist, 
for doubting the accuracy of the received He- 
brew text will only appear on a close and careful 
examination of the text itself in the course of its 
interpretation. 

The context, remote and immediate, is the 
next thing to come under consideration. Only 
in such peculiar books as parts of the Proverbs, 
where each verse in some sort stands by itself, is 
it possible to understand rightly any sentence 
out of the connection in which it stands ; and 
even these different and seemingly contradictory 
proverbs are purposely so placed that they may 
be seen to be the complementary parts of the 
same truth (see, e. g., Pro v. xxvi. 4, 5). Of all 
single points in interpretation the consideration 
of the context is perhaps the most important. 
The strange conceit of Archbishop Trench and 
others that Barabbas was the popular hero of a 
Jewish sedition against the Romans was founded 
partly on a mistaken idea of the word Xrjo-r^ l in 
John xviii. 40 (cf. Matt, xxvii. 44 ; John x. 1, 
8, etc.), and partly on a misapprehension of the 
words in which he is described by the other 
Evangelists (Matt, xxvii. 16 ; Mark xv. 7 ; 
Luke xxiii. 19). It is quite ingeniously wrought 

1 See John x. 1, 8, and the Lexicons- 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 269 

out, 1 but could never have been entertained for 
a moment had it been remembered that Pilate 
was seeking earnestly to release Jesus, and 
could not, therefore, have proposed as an alter- 
native to the Jews the release of any one whom 
they desired to save. The whole circumstances 
of the narrative require that he should have 
proposed to them as obnoxious a person as he 
could. 

After a due study first of the general, then 
of the immediate context, must come the gram- 
matical construction, and finally the examina- 
tion of the particular words used. In regard to 
both these last points care must be taken to 
avoid the constraint of excessive attention to 
minutiae. Minute points of grammar are in- 
deed often important, and rightly determine the 
true meaning where there is reason to suppose 
that the writer used them intentionally. But it 
is not the habit of popular writers in any lan- 
guage to be always closely bound by grammati- 
cal rules when their attention is not given to the 
precise force of words. This may be illustrated 
by an example in our own language. A very 
common provincialism is in the use of will for 
shall, yet no one would think of maintaining 
that the provincial writer meant to imply an 

1 Trench, Studies in the Gospels, pp. 293-297; also Syno- 
nyms of the N. Test, s. v. Xyor-qs. 



270 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

intention whenever he used the word will in the 
wrong place. The human authors of Scripture 
were, for the most part, popular writers, and it 
is folly to undertake to maintain that their lan- 
guage is always nicely grammatical. A fair 
consideration of the use of the prepositions efc 
and er, and of the particles <W and on, is alone 
sufficient to dispel such an idea. At the same 
time when an author wishes to emphasize an 
idea, he will naturally do it grammatically. 
The want of grammatical accuracy generally 
arises not from want of knowledge, but from 
want of care and attention to minutiae. Gram- 
matical construction, therefore, both in Hebrew 
and Greek, must always remain one of the essen- 
tial elements of correct interpretation ; only it is 
not to be pushed too far, and, where no especial 
emphasis was placed upon it by the writer, be 
made to override the teachings of the context or 
the analogy of Scripture. 

Much the same things may be said, but still 
more strongly, of the study of the meaning of 
particular words. This may in the first place 
be ascertained by the use of the lexicons, often- 
times with exactness. But the makers of lexi- 
cons are men, and liable to the same errors and 
prejudices with other men. In every important 
place the student must make for himself an in- 
dependent determination of the meaning of the 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 271 

words on which the sense turns. The chief 
means to be used for this purpose is an exami- 
nation of the usage. In words of frequent 
occurrence the result will ordinarily be conclu- 
sive ; yet even then, it is to be remembered that 
writers then, as now, occasionally employed a 
word in a peculiar sense, of which, in a limited 
literature, it might be hard to find another in- 
stance. A vulgar sense of a word, too, may occa- 
sionally find its place in writings from which it 
is ordinarily excluded. To recur again to an 
English illustration: the word met is common 
in vulgar use, in some parts of the country, for 
overtook. It would be unsafe to infer from a 
newspaper account of the meeting of two vessels 
at sea that they were sailing in opposite direc- 
tions, although such is unquestionably the force 
of the word which is observed in all careful 
writing. Usage, however, is .the paramount law 
for the determination of the meaning of words, 
and only apparently fails when there is really a 
failure in correctly ascertaining it. In case the 
word is a common one in Scripture, especially 
with the particular writer in question, only very 
cogent reasons can justify the supposition of its 
use in a peculiar sense. Thus v6}xos (with or 
without the article) is used with great frequency 
of the divinely given law of the old dispensation, 
and sometimes, by a natural modification of that 



272 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

law as written, of the books, whether of the Pen- 
tateuch only or of the whole Old Testament, in 
which it is contained. It is scarcely possible to 
find a word with its sense more distinctly fixed 
by a large number of definite instances of its 
use. Yet a very few times (as Rom. vii. 23, 25 ; 
viii. 2 ; and especially iii. 27, tSia -n-oiov vofiov ; tcov 

epyojv ; oi>Xh dAAa Sta vo/xov 7rtcrr€a)9) it is used ill an 

absolute and general sense of the law of God 
laying claim to universal obedience. This sense 
is peculiar, infrequent, and opposed to the great 
mass of instances of its use, but is nevertheless 
perfectly well established by the context and 
scope of the argument. 

When New Testament usage is limited, the 
determination of the meaning of a word can 
frequently be aided by a comparison with the 
use of the same word in the Septuagint, always 
remembering the, great advance in revelation 
from the one to the other, and the consequent 
necessity of using some terms in a higher sense 
and others in a new sense which the introduc- 
tion of Christianity occasioned. When the 
word is a Hebrew one, light may be thrown 
upon its meaning oftentimes by the Greek word 
corresponding to it in the New Testament, or, if 
it does not happen to be used there, by the word 
which translates it in the Septuagint and in the 
other ancient versions, especially in the Chaldee 
Targums. These helps are most apt to fail 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 273 

precisely where they are most needed, in the 
case of very unusual words, and words <x7ra£ 
Xeyofieva, because here the versions are apt either 
to transfer the Hebrew term bodily into their 
own text or else to avoid it altogether. Still 
material help can often be obtained in this way, 
though it must always be used with the recollec- 
tion that the ancient translator, whatever special 
advantages he may have had, yefc can give no 
authoritative translation beyond the exercise of 
his own judgment in the circumstances and at 
the time when he wrote. The translation of 
Jerome, as has been remarked, was made under 
exceptional advantages of learning, conscien- 
tiousness, and thorough familiarity with Jew- 
ish tradition, and is therefore of peculiar value 
in this respect to the interpreter. When these 
means of ascertaining the meaning of a word 
fail, there is still a resort to a more uncertain, 
but still valuable, kind of evidence, in the use of 
the term in the cognate languages. It is true 
that a word in passing down the lines of even 
closely affiliated languages may come to have 
widely different significations, as, e. gr., the adjec- 
tives hell or hold in German from the same 
roots as the nouns of the same form in English, 
or the verbs bekommen and become. Still, when 
a word is seen to have substantially the same 
sense in several different branches of a linguis- 
tic family, the presumption is strong that it wil] 



274 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

bear a like sense in the one under consideration. 
Of course the Chaldee and the Syriae, as the 
most closely related branches of the Semitic 
family, are most important for their illustration 
of the meaning of Hebrew words. Etymology 
is another important, but sometimes deceptive, 
source of information ; for the derivative mean- 
ings of words are sometimes strangely unlike 
their primary sense, as in the notorious case of 
the English word means. Each one of these 
several sources, however, contributes its quota of 
probability, and a judicious use of them all will 
generally determine the point with sufficient cer- 
tainty ; for it is seldom that a word is at the 
same time very rare and very important. 

It not infrequently happens that a single word 
of the original is not always expressed by the 
same word in a translation. When this is not 
due to distinct senses of the original word and 
occurs with uniformity in different translations, 
we are naturally led to look in the original for 
some shade of meaning which cannot be so 
exactly expressed by any single word in the lan- 
guages of the translations. Thus the very com- 
mon word "CH is rendered in the A. V. (exclud- 
ing many peculiar and accidental translations) 
by more than sixty different terms, and in the 
Septuagint (besides its combinations with other 
words) by about forty, and by as many in the 
Vulgate. It is obvious, after making all possible 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 275 

allowance for uncertainty of translation, that 
this must be a word in the Hebrew of such 
broad and general signification that it cannot 
be sufficiently rendered by any single term in 
the other languages. 

On the other hand, many different words in 
the original are sometimes represented by a 
single term in the translation. Thus the Eng- 
lish lion is used to translate six different words 
in the Hebrew ; and all those words, though not 
with the same uniformity, are rendered by the 
Greek AeW and the Latin ho. Here it is evi- 
dent that the Hebrew recognized some distinc- 
tion in the animals, which was no longer familiar 
to the Septuagint translators, or else which they 
had no terms to express. This fact may throw 
light upon several passages of the Old Testa- 
ment in which the lion is mentioned. 

One other point must be considered before 
leaving this part of our subject altogether. It 
sometimes happens that a word is used in the 
New Testament in a different sense from that 
which it bears in classic Greek, and yet not with 
such frequency that it is possible to establish its 
New Testament meaning on as broad a basis as 
might be desirable. In such cases the usage of 
the Septuagint becomes of great importance ; 
for it not only offers the opportunity for a larger 
induction, but also furnishes a sufficient reason 
why the New Testament writers should have 



276 THE ART OF INTERPRETING. 

used a word in a different sense from that which 
it bears in ordinary Greek. A single instance 
must suffice. The word xPW aTt ^ originally 
meant in classic Greek to do or to carry on 
business of any kind, but from the third cen- 
tury b. a, it came to have the sense to take and 
bear a name or title. It is possible that in one 
or two instances in the Septuagint, and in the 
New Testament it is used in one or other of 
these meanings (the former in 1 Kings xviii. 27, 
the latter in Rom. vii. 3) ; but in all other of 
the nine instances of its use in the New Testa- 
ment, and of the ten in the Septuagint, it cer- 
tainly refers to a Divine command or direction, 
and probably also in these cases. The same may 
be said also of the derivative word xP r H JL0LTL(T i l ° <; 
in the three instances of its occurrence. The 
Scriptural sense of the word is therefore com- 
pletely established, and in the A. V. it is fre- 
quently translated by " warned of God " or 
equivalent expressions (Matt. ii. 12, 22 ; Luke 
ii. 26 ; Acts x. 22 ; Heb. viii. 5, xi. 7). This 
sense becomes of especial interest in its bearing 
upon the meaning of Acts xi. 26, which, accord- 
ing to this supposition might be translated : 
" The Apostles taught much people, and by 
Divine direction called the disciples Christians 
first in Antioch." 1 

1 Vide Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Literature and 
Exegesis, 1SS0, pp. 14, 15. 



THE INTERPRETER AT HIS WORK. 277 

When the interpreter has completed these 
several processes of his work, it remains that he 
should consider his result as a whole. It often 
happens in any work, mechanical or intellectual, 
that in the process of elaborating the details, 
and while the attention is fixed upon them, a 
certain distortion of parts will occur which is 
not observed until the result is reviewed as a 
whole. Such a review is therefore never to be 
omitted, and it will be of more value if it can be 
made at some interval from the previous work. 
The interpreter has in this simply to consider 
the results at which he has arrived, and to see 
if, apart entirely from the process by which they 
were reached, they appear in themselves prob- 
able. If not, he must go over his work again 
with the purpose of discovering where he has 
exaggerated, or has laid too little stress upon his 
details. But if he has been conscientious in his 
process throughout, and has exercised common 
sense at each point, the result may be expected to 
commend itself to his own and to other minds, 
and the review will confirm his confidence in 
his work. He may reasonably trust that he 
has been enabled to bring out truly the " mind 
of the Spirit," and may have good hope that his 
work will redound to the glory of his Master. 



INDEX. 



Abiathar, High Priest in the time 
of David, 78. 

Abraham, payment of tithes by, 39 ; 
promise to, 40 ; nature of the 
promise to, 40 ; his deceit not 
commended, 44 ; definite secular 
history begun in his time, 94. 

Absalom, the rebellious plans of, 4. 

Ahimelech, son of Abiathar, 78. 

Amalekites, the destruction of, 48. 

Antiquity, manuscripts of, 4. 

Apostles, letters written by the, 6. 

Aquila, translation of the Old Tes- 
tament by, 126 ; character of his 
translation, 126. 

Aramaic, a dialect used by the 
Apostles, 122 ; probably spoken 
by Jesus, 122. 

Archaeology, in general, 101-106 ; as 
bearing on interpretation of the 
Bible, 209 ; Chaldean, 209 ; Egyp- 
tian, 209 ; of various countries, 
209. 

Argument, flaw in the, 39. 

Augustine, his theory of spontaneous 
generation, 15 ; his exhortation to 
Christians, 109. 

Babylon, value of its inscriptions, 
93 ; the inscriptions of, 104. 

Barabbas, why considered a popular 
hero, 268. 

Bethesda, the story of the pool of, 
224 ; archaeological investigation 
of the pool of, 225 ; virtue attrib- 
uted to the pool of, 225. 

Bethlehem, situation of, 189 ; the 
birthplace of Christ, 190 ; dan- 
gers surrounding the shepherds 
of, 190. 

Bible, The, inspiration of, 1 to 73 ; 
what is essential to its interpreta- 
tion, 1 ; nature and character of 
its books, 1 ; leading Christian 
views of, 2 ; the Divine and human 
element in, 2 ; errors of the hu- 
man element of, 3 ; the contra- 



dictory statements of Jewish his- 
tory in, 4, 5 ; extreme theory of 
verbal inspiration untenable, 5 ; 
divine element in, 6 ; limitation 
of the divine element of, 8 ; limi- 
tation of the human element of, 
8 ; the meaning of error in, 9 ; al- 
leged scientific errors in the Old 
Testament, 11, 12, 13 ; its pur- 
pose not to teach natural science, 
19, 20 ; scientific errors in, 21 ; 
another class of errors in, 26; 
technical errors in, 28, 29 ; ap- 
parent contradictions in ex- 
plained, 30-36 ; alleged errors of 
reasoning in, 37 - 43 ; historical 
facts in, 44 ; testimony of Christ 
to the truth of, 60, 61 ; Apostles' 
appeal to the authority of, 61 ; 
thought and study required for 
the exegesis of, 63 ; known as 
Holy, 64 ; the two main divisions 
of, 64 ; difference between the 
two parts of, 66 ; poetical and di- 
dactic books of, 67 ; unity of, 71 ; 
the Divinely given books of, 71 ; 
formed as the exigencies of the 
times required, 91 ; formed in ac- 
cordance with the laws of history, 
91 ; the history of the chosen 
people found in, 92 ; the worldly 
man able to comprehend in part, 
117 ; the harmony between the 
spirit of the interpreter and, 117 ; 
the Holy Spirit inspiring the writ- 
ers of, 117 ; the work of a Semitic 
people, 120; the languages of, 
120 ; meaning of the word hatred 
in, 229. 
Buttmann, the grammar of, 235. 

Caiaphas, trial before, 212. 
Calf, the golden, its structure, 225. 
Canaan, the conquest of, 172. 
Canaanites, why destroyed, 48. 
Canticles, character of the, 67. 
Captives, census of, 4. 



280 



INDEX. 



Chaldee, language, 68 ; the neces- 
sity of knowledge of, 121 ; chap- 
ters written in, 121 ; doubts re- 
moved by, 123. 

Chemist, the analysis of the, 166. 

Character, apocalyptic, 60. 

Christ, promise to Abraham of, 40. 

Christians, two leading views of the 
Bible held by, 1. 

Civilization, influence of the Bible 
in formation of Christian, 1. 

Commentators, how led into errors, 
70. 

Composition, human, 6. 

Contradictions, moral, 9. 

Copernicus, language used by his 
disciples, 11. 

Copyist, errors of, 3. 

Creation, the Mosaic account of, 
14 ; the Etruscan account of, 16 ; 
Chaldean legends of, 16 ; general 
order of, 17, 18 ; why not scien- 
tifically described, 18. 

Cremer, the remarks on Greek 
words by, 252. 

Criticism, object of textual, 130 ; 
discussion of principles of textual, 
131 ; great advance of textual, 
132; valuable works on textual, 
137 ; texts of New Testament, 
data for, 138; conjectural, 148. 

Critic, the application by. 4. 

Cursives, how designated, 132 ; when ' 
used, 132. 

Dan, the situation of the city of ; 
185 ; mentioned in a Phoenician 

inscription, 186. 
Daniel, book of, 9 ; what is required 

to understand his prophecies 
Dante, divine element in, 3. 
David, the influence of surroundings 

upon, 191 ; the time of the out- 
lawry of, 203. 
Deborah, an inspired prophetess, 

54. 
Dialect, Aramaic, 122 ; used by 

Christ, 122. 
Dispensation, The Old, divinely 

given, 59. 
Divine, something which is, 2 ; 

Psalms in harmony with the, 6 ; 

nature of our Lord, 7 ; in the 

Bible, limitation of the, 7. 

Ecclesiastes, discussion found in, 
67. 

Egypt, its climate and condition, 
88 ; the struggle between Meso- 
potamia and, 94 ; the struggles of 



Israel and, 95 ; its traditions and 
monuments, 102 ; influence of 
Mosaic legislation upon, 102 ; the 
Jewish emigration to, 102 ; its 
religion an esoteric monotheism, 
103 ; position of women in, 103 ; 
porch of Solomon's temple de- 
rived from, 104. 

Ehud, an assassin, 56. 

Element, limitation of the human, 
8. 

Ellicott, the mistakes of, 79. 

Era, monsters of the Carboniferous, 
45. 

Errors, undeniable, 3 ; found in 
text, 3 ; found in the Bible, 5 ; 
meaning of, 9 ; in statement of 
numbers, 70 ; due to the mistakes 
of copyist, 77. 

Essenes, doctrines of the, 97. 

Etymology, an important source of 
information, 274. 

Eusebius, a competent critic, 136. 

Evangelists, their alleged discrep- 
ancies, 30. 

Events, deep mystery of historical, 
161. 

Evidence, tangibility of, 6. 

Exegesis, the study of, 166. 

Exegete, necessary qualifications of 
an. 90 ; religious qualification of 
an. 115; propel standpoint of an, 
11."); knowledge necessary to an, 
120 ; his relation to textual criti- 
cism, 129; industry essential to, 
140 ; should be an independent 
thinker, 151 ; judicial habit of 
mind required by, 155 ; difficulties 
in the way of, 155. 15H ; prepara- 
tion for his work, 103, 164 ; must 
fix the precise meaning of each 
word, 246 ; the critical examina- 
tion of the text by, 207 ; his duty 
when authorities are evenly bal- 
anced, 267 ; must accept facta as 
they are, 207. 

Exile, Babylonian, 4. 

Fact, the first, 2 ; a broad, 5. 
Facts, presented in the Scriptures, 
2 ; examination of, 2. 

Fergusson, on the construction of 
the Temple, 240. 

Galatians, two cases found in, 40. 
Genealogy, that in Matthew merely 

a summary, 78. 
General, sagacity displayed by a, 

150. 
Genesis, the cosmogony of, 14-17 ; a 



INDEX. 



281 



compilation from more ancient 
documents, 178 ; contains two ac- 
counts of the creation, 178 ; dif- 
ferences in, and how harmonized, 
179 ; point in, where fresh narra- 
tives begin, 236. 

Geography, ancient, knowledge of 
desirable, 183. 

Gesenius, a grammarian, 248. 

God, the word of, 2 ; the promise 
of, 2 ; all things come from, 18 ; 
Old Testament conception of, 22 ; 
anthropomorphic representations 
of, 26 ; his absolute essence un- 
known, 27, 176 ; all spiritual au- 
thority from, 39 ; man's federal 
relations with, 48 ; his message to 
Saul, 49; Scripture, the word of, 
71 ; to whom his gifts are given, 
118 ; manifested only through a 
mediator, 176 ; absolute equality 
of men before, 195. 

Gospels, The, facts of, 5 ; relations 
between Jews and Christians un- 
der, 43 ; synoptical, 66. 

Griesbach, critical edition of his 
grammar, 131. 

Greek, fine distinctions in, 241, 242 ; 
use of aorists, 243 ; inferences 
from the use of the aorists, 244 ; 

Hagar, allegory of Sarah and, 42 ; 
name of Mount Sinai, 44. 

Hebrew, does not contain the plu- 
perfect, 33 ; alleged unfair transla- 
tion of verb in, 80 ; grammatical 
proprieties of, 237 ; how to deter- 
mine the interpretation of, 238-9 ; 
poverty of, in inflections, 240 ; re- 
marks on tenses in, 245 ; double 
meaning of word in, 246, 247 ; the 
meaning of words affected by 
changing the letters in, 256. 

Hebrews, The epistle to, 38 ; char- 
acter of its writers, 38; subtle 
reasoning in, 38 ; sense of, how 
observed, 233. 

Hermeneutics, principles of, 2 ; re- 
versing the principles of, 164. 

Herod, his character a factor in the 
narrative, 99. 

Herodotus, the erroneous statement 
of, 221. 

Hezekiah, why punished, 200. 

History, the Old Testament, 65 ; ori- 
ental and primitive, 65 ; stand- 
point of the Old Testament, 65 ; 
study of, necessary for the tyro, 
165 ; application of, to general ex- 
egesis, 192 ; application to partic- 



ular passages, 196 ; of nations con- 
temporary with Israel, 196 ; es- 
sential to the interpretation of 
prophecy, 201 ; its bearing on 
chronological subjects, 204-206 ; 
examples of its chronological im- 
portance, 207, 208. 

Hitzig, his conjectural emendation, 
257. 

Homer, divine element in, 3. 

Infinite, unknowable by the finite, 
23 ; not comparable with the 
finite, 24. 

Inspiration, extreme theory of ver- 
bal, 5 ; true theory of, 62. 

Interpretation, system of, 2 ; two 
important factors of, 65 ; know- 
ledge necessary to, 68; how to 
remove the difficulties of, 69 ; 
method of, 73 ; common sense in, 
157 ; originality in, 159 ; the fact 
to be recollected in, 160. 

Interpreter, The, qualification of, 
73 ; reverence of, 159 ; actual work 
of, 163 ; work required of an igno- 
rant, 165 ; the best way for a fully 
prepared, 165 ; the actual process 
of, 260 ; effect of prayer upon, 
260 ; belief in the efficacy of prayer 
necessary to, 261 ; general know- 
ledge of the Scriptures necessary 
to, 262 ; historical knowledge nec- 
essary to, 262. 

Israel, both a church and a nation, 
93. 

Israelites, why made the instruments 
of God's judgments, 50 ; their 
tendency to heathen practices, 51 ; 
especial favorites of God, 52 ; not 
favored for their own sakes, 53 ; 
their place in the plan of redemp- 
tion, 54 ; the Messianic hope their 
central thought, 76. 

Jacob, success of his deceit, 44. 

Jael, praise of the perfidy of, 44 ; 
why commended, 56. 

James, truth taught by, 8 ; incorrect 
inferences from the epistle of, 
248, 249; Syriac version of, cor- 
rect, 249. 

Jeremiah, truth taught by, 8 ; curses 
the day of his birth, 265. 

Jericho, miracle performed at, 217 ; 
customs of, 218. 

Jerome, St. , his translation the basis 
of the present Vulgate, 126 ; his 
scholarship unquestionable, 126 ; 
his version of the greatest value, 



282 



INDEX. 



126-273 ; he revises the Vetus La- 
tiiia, 134 ; his exceptional advan- 
tages, 273. 

Jerusalem, route from Galilee to, 
188 ; its destruction foretold, 202. 

Job, Book of, G7. 

John, truth taught by, 8 ; of a priest- 
ly family, 79 ; his use of logos pe- 
culiar to himself, 98. 

John Baptist, his reproof of Herod, 
98. 

John, St., Gospel of, where ambigu- 
ous, 231-234 ; disputed passages 
in considered, 250, 251 ; doubt- 
ful readings in, 255 ; enigmatical 
words found in, 204 ; interpreta- 
tation of such words, 204. 

Kenites, a neutral nation, 54. 
Knobel, acknowledges the sublimity 
of the Hebrew narrative, 17. 

Language, important variety of, 68 ; 
modification of, 08 ; Hebrew at 
the time of Christ a dead. 09. 

Law, Pharisaical interpretation of, 
174 ; of Moses, its educational 
purpose, 194. 

Laws, those of Moses modified and 
why, 85. 

Letters, peculiarities of the He- 
brew, 259 ; investigation of, 259 ; 

Levi, the scattered tribe of, 203. 

Literature, in pure Hebrew, 09. 

Luke, St., Gospel of, when misinter- 
preted, 232 ; phrase in, susceptible 
of many different meanings, 255. 

Maccabees, their influence on the 
fortunes of the Jews, 97. 

Man, condition of the natural, 110. 

Manasseh, '_'.")7. 

Manuscripts, the age and relative 
value of, 131 ; ancient, of unequal 
value, 132; the division of, 132; 
the best not the oldest, 132 : 
method of testing, 133 ; date of 
earliest, 138 ; made of papyrus and 
parchment, 219 ; on parchment, 
highly prized, 219. 

Masora, a compilation begun in the 
sixth century, 139 ; nature of its 
contents, 139. 

Mediator, necessity for a, 113. 

Melchisedec, blessings and privi- 
leges given to, 39. 

Miracles, how possible, 112 ; not 
violations of nature's law, 112; 
affecting apparent motion of the 
sun, 220 ; how explained, 220. 



Monotheism, taught before the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, 25. 

Morality of the Old Testament, 44 ; 
its reconciliation with the Gospel 
law, 45-50. 

Moses, his error regarding the coney, 
11 ; description of camel by, 12 ; 
not a comparative anatomist, 12 ; 
revises his writings, 221. 

Nabunahit, value of the inscriptions 
of, 105. 

Naturalist, the methods of a well 
instructed, 105. 

Nazareth, its lovely situation, 188. 

Nebuchadnezzar, rise of the empire 
of, 90 ; the inscription of, 104. 

Nile, the rising of explains Bible 
stories, 223. 

Nineveh, the ruins of, 93; its his- 
tory connected with that of Israel, 
96 ; the archaeology of, 104. 

Onesiphorus, speculations regard- 
ing, 243, 244. 

Origen, his critical opinion of the 
highest value, 130. 

Originality, the true, 158 ; the false 
and mischievous, 158. 

Palestine, natural features of, 88 ; 
valuable bocks regarding, 
home of the chosen people, 101 ; 
geological formation of, 223. 

Paul, hie argument upon the promise 
made to Abraham, 42 : his char- 
acter as an important element in 
the interpretation of his writings, 
(JO. 

Pentateuch, the Samaritan version 
of, of great antiquity, 125; critical 
value of, 125. 

Peter, denial of his Master by the 
apostle, 45 ; at the trial before Cai- 
aphas, 213,214. 

Philistines, thirty thousand char- 
iots of the, 5. 

Pilate, meaning of his question, 97. 
i Plato, his philosophy, 98. 
| Polygamy, why tolerated under the 
old dispensation. 

Priesthood, the Melchisedecan, 39 ; 
Aaronic, 39 ; Lcvitical, 40 ; estab- 
lished by God, 40. 

Promise, primeval, 40 ; emphasis of, 
257. 

Prophecy, appeal to, 5. 

Prophet, vision of the, 160. 

Psalms, spirit and aspiration of the, 
; Book of, 07. 



INDEX 



283 



Puteoli, ruins of, 210 ; landing place 
of Paul, 211. 

Rahab, a striking instance of faith, 
48. 

Redeemer, the promised, 40 ; salva- 
tion through a personal, 71. 

Revelation, the older, 6 ; adapted to 
the human understanding, 23 ; 
possibility of it assumed, 24 ; made 
only through a mediator, 24; 
methods of, 25-27; progressive, 
92 ; affected by the condition of 
those to whom it was given, 92 ; 
increasing development of, 193 ; 
that made to Abraham, 193 ; how 
illustrated, 227. 

Reverence, as a necessary result, 
159 ; as a requirement of God, 
160 ; mistaken forms of, 162. 

Robinson, Dr., his "Biblical Re- 
searches " valuable, 89. 

Romans, their method of reckoning 
time, 215 ; their method used by 
John, 215, 216 ; relation of their 
method to narratives in the fourth 
GospeL 216, 217 ; epistle to, often 
misunderstood, 180; main argu- 
ment in, 180. 

Sampson, 57. 

Saul, his journey to consult the 
witch of Endor, 187. 

Science, Natural, influence on inter- 
pretation, 107, 108 ; removes diffi- 
culties, 107 ; cannot ignore the 
results of, 108 : its proper limits, 
109 ; origin of its so-called con- 
flict with religion, 109 ; general- 
izations of modern, 110 ; recog- 
nizes the doctrine of immanence, 
111 ; discretion required in use of, 
222 ; its relation to miracles, 226. 

Scribes, the lapsus of, 5. 

Scriptures, The, truths contained in, 
5 ; three theories contained in, 6 ; 
unity in the volume of, 7 ; adap- 
tation of, to the understanding, 
8 ; knowledge of, how best ob- 
tained, 81 ; use of commentators 
on, 82 ; individuality of the writ- 
ers of, 83 ; uncertain authorship 
of portions of, 84 ; knowledge of 
its geography essential, 87 ; im- 
portant clue to its interpretation, 
113 ; writers of, religious men, 
115 ; teachings of, concur with the 
lessons of life, 116; criticism of 
the text considered, 129 ; Applica- 
tion of the knowledge of, 168, 119 ; 



numbers variously stated in, 169, 
170 ; conflicting statements in, 
how reconciled, 171, 172 ; peculiar 
sense of the words in, 249-252 ; 
writers of some of the books can- 
not be known, 265 ; writers of, not 
always grammatical, 270 ; use of 
prepositions in, 270 ; case of com- 
mon words used in, 271. 

Seed, Abraham and his, 40 ; Biblical 
meaning of the word, 40 ; of the 
woman, 40. 

Septuagint, The, its influence on 
the New Testament writers, 102 ; 
contains the earliest Greek trans- 
lation of the Old Testament, 124 ; 
unequal accuracy of, 124 ; of great 
value, 124 ; the work of the Alex- 
andrian Jews, 141 ; an important 
authority on conflicting readings, 
141 ; variation in, 142 ; two prin- 
cipal recensions of the text of, 
142, 143 ; words coined for use in, 
252 ; comparison of words used in, 
272 ; one word translated in forty 
ways, 274 ; treatment of the word 
lion in, 275 ; its usage, when of 
great importance, 276. 

Serapis, an Egyptian deity, 211 ; fa- 
mous temple of, 212. 

Shewbread, how offered, 174 ; to be 
eaten by the priests alone, 174. 

Shishak, his successful expedition 
against Rehoboam, 197 ; first king 
of the twenty-first dynasty, 198 ; 
his alliance with Jeroboam, 198. 

Slavery, under old dispensation, 45. 

Sodom, the destruction of, 51. 

Solomon, horses of, 4 ; his reasons 
for marrying the daughter of Shi- 
shak, 197 ; evils existing under his 
government, 220. 

Son of Man, The, a phrase met with 
in certain prophets, 253 ; why 
chosen as a title by our Lord, 253. 

Spirit, The Holy, meaning of revela- 
tion from, 162. 

Stephen, the character of, 32 ; his 
knowledge of the facts he stated 
as compared to ours, 33 ; had good 
authority for his statements, 34. 

Student, The, the danger to, 167. 

Talmud, The, date of, 139; how com- 
posed, 140 ; its chief value, 140. 

Targums, The, translation of, 121 ; 
estimate of the scholarship of the 
translators of, 144 ; paraphrastic 
translations of, 144 ; not without 
critical value, 144. 



284 



INDEX. 



Testament, errors found in the Old 
and New, 3 ; faulty morality of | 
the Old, 4 ; Old, how cited in 
the New, 31 ; Christ recognized 
the authority of the Old, G5 ; his- 
torical narrative of the Old, G5 ; 
proportion of history found in the 
New, Go ; character of the history 
of the Old, 65 ; character of the 
history of the New, 65 ; influence 
of the Greek language upon the 
New, G8 ; Hellenistic structure of 
the Old, 08 ; textual criticism of 
the New, 69 ; reasons for consider- 
ing first the text of the New, 130 ; 
to what edition of the New is ap- 
plied the term Textus Receptus, 
130 ; manuscripts containing any 
part of the New, 131 ; true char- 
acter of the dialect of the New, 
1G1 ; value of conjectural criticism 
of the Old, 258. 

Testimony of ancient documents, 
how it should be weighed, 29. 

Text, criticism of the, 4; settlement 
of, G9 ; guarded by the Jews, 10 ; 
the Samaritan, 70 ; data for deter- 
mining the, 131 ; important factor 
in the variation of the, 259. 

Theodotion, value of his translation 
of Daniel, 126. 

Theories, three possible, 3 ; human 
and divine, 7. 

Tischendorf, 131. 

Tregelles, his mistakes as a com- 
mentator, 79. 



Trench, Archbishop, his ideas re- 
garding redemption, 41 ; strange 
conceit of, 2GS ; reason of his mis- 
takes, 268. 

Truth, introduced by the gospel, 5 ; 
recognized by all men, 5 ; its 
power to transform, 6 ; full and 
clear expression of the divine, 
263. 

Uncials, written in capital letters, 

132 ; in what centuries used, 132. 

Vedas, 70. 

Versions, of the Old Testament, 

127 ; Arabic, why valuable, 127 ; 

Latin, the most important, 133 ; 

description of the Vetus Latina, 

133 ; revision of, 134 ; Syriac, sec- 
ond in value, 135 ; varieties of, 
135 ; Egyptian, when made, 135 ; 
Gothic, of the fourth century, 
135 ; Armenian, of later origin, 
135 ; all used in determining the 
text, 135 ; Samaritan, the oldest, 
140 ; value of Samaritan, 140, 141 ; 
Peshito-Syriac, 135, 140. 

Voltaire, his theory of the origin of 

fossils, 223. 
Vulgate, The, 257. 

West, his remarkable conversion, 30. 

Writer, The, personality of, 7 ; tem- 
perament of, 7 ; idea of the times 
by, 8 ; errors incorporated in the 
Bible by, 8 ; free speech of, 9. 



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